Fortune X Freedom X Fate
by Colorless Butterfly
Summary: She was just an ignorant coward who was too scared of living to die properly. He was just a psychopath who became interested in her ability to see what he had hidden for so long. After all, his hands are swathed in murderous black strings, while hers are starkly bare - so tell me, what kind of bloodied threads will connect them together? Hisoka X OC. Pre-Canon. ON HIATUS.
1. Chapter 1

**Hisoka deserves more love. I effing adore him :3**

**Anyway, my first shot at a story on here. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer : I DO NOT OWN HUNTER X HUNTER.**

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><p>It was painfully bright in the back streets of the sprawling city that surrounded the Celestial Tower. Then again, it was mid-July, smack in the middle of the tourist season. As usual, there was an undertone of clamoring as people traipsed by, stopping once or twice to glance over a sidewalk vendor's various items before moving on.<p>

A lone, thin figure sat in the shade, a tattered hood pulled up over her dark black hair. Piercing green eyes darted from side to side, watching every person that passed with a hawk-like intensity. Rich here; poor there. A finger idly drew circles on the ground. Her lips curved into a small smile as she saw a little girl bump into a taller lady, then quickly extracting herself and bowing in apology before running off. The lady didn't even notice the pearl bracelet that was now clutched tightly in the girl's hands.

This was the backstreets of the city. A place where the rich met the poor, and all kinds of people mingled together. Kaede watched the little girl run away into the distance, and then resumed watching the people around her. A man pushing a cart yelled across the alley to gather more people to look at his trinkets; an old lady sat quietly and allowed visitors to finger the assortment of beads she had displayed before her. A-

A set of purple clown-shoes blocked her vision, and Kaede looked up, angrily about to ask the man to move. Piercing green eyes caught reddish-gold ones, and Kaede froze, all words escaping her mouth to trail off into nothingness.

_He was scary. _Demeaning eyes, slitted like a fox and utterly cold. Here was a manipulative liar, a person that trusted no one and tricked everyone. Anxious to escape his gaze, she allowed herself to glance instead at his clothes. _What was he doing? Was he a customer...?_

He wore clothes that were not of the backstreets. They were much richer, clean and not as worn. Instinctively, Kaede knew that he must be a fighter from the Celestial Tower that rose high in the sky, visible from even the outskirts of the city around the Heaven's Arena. On a second glance-over, she straightened slightly. _If he had nice clothes, he had money._ But that didn't stop her from smiling slightly at his appearance. He looked like a clown! Even his face was adorned like one, with a purple star on one cheek and a green teardrop on the other. The moment her eyes glanced into his reddish-gold ones once more, though, her laughter was cut short.

_Dangerous._

Her thoughts must have transferred onto her face, because the man squatted down, the hint of a smile appearing on his pale white face.

"Pardon me, mademoiselle, but are you a fortune-teller?"

Kaede stiffened, her eyebrows creasing into a momentary frown, but forced herself to nod coolly. Celestial Tower people; they were always slightly different. There was no doubt in her mind about how dangerous this man was. "...How did you know?" Her voice was testy, cautious. You did not mess with someone from the Celestial Tower; not unless you were insane or suicidal.

The man only smiled further, but it was a cold smile. "Call it a hunch."

Kaede allowed herself to relax, even if it was only a little bit. His murderous energy wasn't directed towards her. _But if he has money... _"Would you like me to read your fate?"

The man considered. "It would be interesting," he admitted, before sitting down before her. "How much?"

Kaede barked a harsh laugh, before gesturing for him to extend a hand. "Does it really matter? You have the money, don't you?"

Something about the air turned lighter, amused. "I do, in fact, so I thought I'd entertain myself today. Besides, I've always been interested in fortune telling."

_Fortune telling? But that is only a disguise._

A small smile graced her lips, and Kaede slowly removed her hood, revealing a thin, gaunt face, framed by black hair cropped short and close to her chin. How long had it been since she'd had food? Today was her lucky day, it seemed.

"The left hand shows your connections to others," she said, her chin tilting upwards slightly as she looked him directly in the eyes. Now that he was a customer, he did not seem so scary. "The right hand shows your future." A thin, bony hand reached out to take the man's offered hand. His right hand.

"I will start with your future."

Kaede controlled the odd tremor that went through her as she took his hand. His hand was cold as ice, and for a second, she was terrified: what kind of future would this man have? Again, he was from the Celestial Tower. Rumors had that those who came from the tower were monsters, especially the ones at the 200th level.

As if sensing her hesitation, the magician shifted lightly. "Are you going to read my palm?"

His words brought her back to reality. Kaede nodded absentmindedly. "Something like that...but not really." Slowly, she concentrated on his hand, waiting patiently for the threads to appear. They always did after a while, wrapped tightly around the fingers, wound around the palms. Strings of Fate, she liked to call them. It made it sound more like fortune-telling, even though it was more of an interpretation of strings than anything else.

Because it had always been like that, hadn't it? Years were but a blur for Kaede, and if there was a time where she could not see strings on the hands of others, she did not remember it.

Her breath hitched, and Kaede was dimly aware that the magician had stopped moving, and was now watching her curiously. But that didn't matter much, as the strings on his hand grew clearer and clearer._Black...blue...silver...red._ _Yellow?_

To the normal passerby, they would only see a thin, starving girl reading a man's palm. But what occurred between the two was something else; a moment as the girl transformed the fate she read into a chilling foretelling. Her voice, no longer raspy and hoarse, now rang clear with conviction. The man with flaming red hair could only remain kneeling as he watched the girl with an unnatural attentiveness.

"The blue thread. A meeting with the unexpected." She began slowly, eyes tracing the threads that wound around his fingers like a colorful tapestry. "A summoning in September; silver. Black and red, intertwined...a spider, waiting to strike." Her eyes searched closer, a look of discomfort crossing her face. "How odd...black and yellow are twisted into an interlocking spiral. Pain and joy, tangled together, refusing to separate...? You are an odd man."

"People have said that, yes." The man smile was slightly forced as he abruptly took away his right hand, even though Kaede was not finished. Her eyes narrowed questioningly. Was there something in this person's future he did not want her to see? She shrugged it off. In the end, she was getting money. That was all that mattered, yes? Kaede huffed silently, feeling the sharp pang of hunger in her stomach. Hunger was something she had to ignore, though. Customers did not want to know that the one reading their future was a mere starving girl. Due of that, Kaede had long since perfected the art of hiding any discomfort she felt, instead keeping a cold, professional look surrounding her at all times.

"Now then, your relationships with others." She said briskly, deciding to continue on with the reading. She took his left hand this time, noting again the unnatural coldness. Her sharp green eyes did not pass over the slight hesitation that washed over the man as he gave her his left hand, either. _So he _is_ nervous._ She thought triumphantly, before focusing once more on his hand.

They snaked around his palms, trailed off from his fingers. And every single one of them...every single one...?

_Every one of them was black_. Fingers tightened in a death-lock around his hand, her free hand tightening and gouging a set of lines in the dirt. Actually, now that she looked closer, there were hints of color that stood out sharply from the black. And yet, the number of those threads were so few compared to black threads, it was almost sickening. Each and every black thread was snipped off cleanly, where it had already started to unravel. Ended forever.

For a moment, Kaede didn't know how to react. Impossible, right? This man couldn't be so dangerous._ No one_ could be walking around so normally, not jailed up._ Not if they had..._She swallowed uneasily_...murdered so many people._

_His hand is ice cold._

She'd never seen anyone with so many black threads. And perhaps, more unsettling, was the dark red tints that shocked from several of the black threads. This man had been challenged to a fight to the death, many, many times, and he'd won every single battle he had fought. Sharp green eyes darted up to glare at the magician with an expression that was half shock and half-hatred.

The man glanced at his trapped hand, expression one of pleasant concern. "Is there something wrong, mademoiselle?"

_Wrong? Don't make me laugh. You are a monster._

_He was a monster._

She exhaled softly, her breath shuddering slightly, trying to ease the tension in her shoulders. "What is your name?" Kaede asked slowly, trying to mask the slight tremor in her voice.

"Mm? Did you see something?" The magician tried to withdraw his hand, but Kaede gripped it tighter, refusing to let go.

"Name," she internally winced at the waver in her own voice. _Do not show fear._

He considered her bony, hand, clutching at his own, refusing to let go. "Hisoka," he replied after a pause, a hint of irritation coloring his cold voice.

"Hisoka," Kaede murmured the name to herself, her knuckles turning white as she continued to grip his hand tighter and tighter, "Hisoka. Your hand is covered with black strings, and all of them are cut." Her tone was frigid. Cold as ice, showing nothing but hostility. "Black on the left hand means murder; a cut string signifies death. How many people have you killed...? An unmentionable number, surely. And yet..." Her voice shook slightly. "And yet, _there is no gray string of regret_." Her piercing green eyes traveled up to stare at him, narrowed. "What kind of monster are you?"

There was a sharp crack as Hisoka wrenched his hand away, out of Kaede's grasp. Her hand recoiled from the force, slamming painfully into the wall behind her. Kaede's eyes widened, and quickly, she backed further into the wall, cowering as a sudden wave of cold _bloodlust_ washed over her. Her hand throbbed from the impact with the wall. Curious passerbys glanced briefly in their direction before continuing with their business.

But then the oppressive atmosphere was gone, and Hisoka smiled. Her blood turned cold, as if someone had doused her with ice water. _How did his smile look so demonic_? Instantly, Kaede regretted saying anything about the threads on his hands at all.

"I admit, that was an excellent reading, mademoiselle. Much more accurate than most."

"My strings are never wrong." She replied with conviction, the muscles in her throat constricting. A bead of sweat ran down her back of her neck as she remained in her guarded stance, eyes watching for movement. If he tried to attack...

"Indeed. And you've been able to see them since you were born?"

Kaede was momentarily confused. "Yes?" How else was she supposed to have learned? It was just something that she'd grown an affinity for over the years. A sudden movement interrupted her thoughts, and Kaede tensed again, ready to run.

A soft _thump_, and a bundle of money landed at her feet. Kaede flinched visibly, as if expecting a blow instead. She quickly snatched it up, but her eyes did not stray from Hisoka.

"Thank you," he said, already standing up. "I suppose that is sufficient payment~?" He turned to leave.

Kaede's hand shot out to grab to back of his pants, stopping him in his tracks. Her arm was trembling.

"There are no blue strings of friendship." She said, everything coming out in a rush. "And no yellow strings of family. But there are three green strands of rivalry; one tangled with the black thread of death." She hesitated, her gaze flicking to her own hand briefly. "Two white threads for the people that you are destined to meet again...and one red thread of love knotted to the white, although it simply dangles to the ground, unattached and free-hanging. Your life is not colorless, Hisoka."

As fast as it had shot out, her hand released the back of his pants, and Kaede resumed her original position, leaned against the wall. Her green eyes did not dart around like they normally did. Instead, they were steady, staring straight ahead. The muscles in her neck were tense.

_What was I thinking? I should not have stopped him. _Kaede swallowed, pursing her lips. _This is the first time I have felt such a sudden urge to tell a customer his _true_ reading..._

A small smile appeared on Hisoka's face, and he turned away once more. This time, Kaede did not stop him.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle."

But she remained motionless, gaze fixed at the wall ahead of her.

.

It was only after Kaede was sure that Hisoka was walking away did she risk glancing at her own hand. As usual, it was bare. Clean; devoid of any strings marking her connection to others. Except for a single thread that solidified even as she sat there, watching it wrap around her pinky finger tightly.

A single white thread, connecting her to the one she was destined to meet again, trailing off into the distance. Her hawk-like gaze turned to follow it, all the way down the crooked cobblestone path, where the tall figure of Hisoka slowly disappeared from sight.

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><p><strong>Review! Favorite! :D<strong>

**with much love,**

**-Colorii**


	2. Chapter 2

Hisoka yawned as he emerged from the bathroom in a white bathrobe, once again in his room at the Celestial Tower. His flaming red hair was now loose and down around his shoulders, still wet from the shower.

He swiped his deck from the table and began methodically shuffling. Glancing out at the setting sun, he ran his thumb over the edges of his cards, and then swiped the first card.

_The Queen of Spades_. An unlucky card, that one.

His eyes studied the card momentarily before he swiped it back into his deck with a flick of his wrist. As he began re-shuffling, his lips curved into an amused smile as he thought of another unlucky someone.

That fortune teller this afternoon…she had certainly not been a regular street vendor.

_Then again, she was a Nen-user, and that was what made her interesting_, Hisoka mused as he shuffled his deck once again. There was no mistaking the Nen that had surrounded her when she had taken hold of his hand, green eyes glowing with Nen. To be able to see the divining threads wrapped around a person's hand, was that a Specialization ability?

Hisoka smirked slightly to himself, lifting his left hand to inspect it. The fortune teller had said it was covered in black threads, but aside from several old paper-thin cuts, his palm looked clean to him. Divination—an unusual gift, even among Nen-users.

"What an interesting girl," Hisoka murmured to himself as he reclined in a chair, shuffling his deck again. This time he shuffled longer, almost absently as he stared off into space, remembering.

According to what she said, she had been born with her Nen, and that's what had surprised him. People who were naturally born with Nen capabilities were extremely rare, after all. They were anomalies of the Nen world; incapable of doing the basic Nen functions of other nen masters and yet having a fully developed Hatsu and Nen signature, something that should have been impossible and yet happened anyway. Many had gone on to become famous artists in the regular world, such as Beethoven or Picasso or the knife-maker, Benz.

And to think that one had lived right under his nose this whole time. Hisoka felt a grin forming, and he began cackling softly to himself in the emptiness of his apartment.

This fortune-teller, this _anomaly, _had piqued his interest.

.

.

It was dark; the moon had risen, and Kaede stood up, stretching as her limbs creaked in protest after staying in the same spot for so long. With a satisfying series of cracks_, _she rolled her neck and loosened up the stiffness in her back.

The streets were deserted save for a few stragglers. She leaned down, feeling her muscles stretch, and picked up the meager amounts of money she had earned throughout the day. It wasn't much, but it would get her through the next day.

"Kaede!"

She turned at the sound of pattering feet, a faint smile appearing on her face.

"Lucy," she said.

A little girl stepped out of the alleyway's shadows and into the yellow light of the streetlamp. Her long brown hair hung in dirty snarls around her face, wide brown eyes crinkled in a friendly smile. She was barefoot.

"Kaede," she said, "what are you doing? Aoi and Midori are waiting for you."

"Ahh," Kaede replied, her eyebrows creasing slightly, "sorry. I was just about to leave. How did you guys do today?"

She liked Lucy. Lucy was young, and her hands were covered in the most beautiful shades of crimson and violet and cobalt blue that Kaede had ever seen. They stretched far from her tiny hands, and they always left a smile on Kaede's face. She had never seen anyone with such a gorgeous tapestry of threads.

_Blue, _she thought. _Blue is for friendship. _And there it was, _proof that they were friends, _stretching from her index finger to Lucy's. It was one of the few strings on her fingers, and something she valued greatly.

"Badly," Lucy shrugged, wrinkling her nose. "Aoi shoplifted a few things, and I stole a bracelet. But the pawnbroker doesn't want to see us anymore. Midori managed to snag a pizza box, though. You?"

Kaede smiled, and hefted her bundle of money. "I met a few interesting people today, but other than that I got the same amount as usual." More like one. Hisoka, the fighter from the Heaven's Arena.

"Hmm," Lucy said, and then shrugged, turning to grin at her. The moonlight sparkled in her eyes. "Whatever! We're all used to being hungry, and it's best to save whatever money you get for tomorrow. Today, Midori said we'd play a game."

They headed down a secluded alleyway, a small corridor between old buildings. There was a small candle flickering, and it sent eerie shadows across the stone wall.

"Aoi?" Lucy called cheerfully, her voice carrying in the darkness with ease, "Midori?"

"Oh, Lucy and Kaede. Hey!" Two boys got up from the ground, the flame from the candle wavering haphazardly from the sudden movement and rush of air. They were nearly identical, with dirty, gaunt cheeks and scraggly hair, if not for the color of their eyes. In the dim candlelight, they were indistinguishable, but Kaede knew that in the daylight one's eyes would by a pale green and the other light blue.

"Hey," Kaede said, relieved. "How are you guys today?"

"Midori was awesome," one of the twins said, a big grin on his face. "Somehow he snagged a deck of cards and a box full of pizza! Full!"

"Straight from the dumpster," Midori said proudly, "and it even had some garlic sauce to boot. Here, we saved some for you." He gestured behind him, to a pile of crates and other emptied cardboard boxes. "Kind of reminds me of the good old days, ah?"

Lucy bounded forward with an eager squeal of delight, quickly drawing the pizza box from its hiding places between two crates. She lifted the cover, and took a deep whiff, sighing in satisfaction. "Pepperoni," she said, gleefully surprised, "Midori, I could kiss you right now."

Kaede smiled, and set down her bundle of money as well, wedging it securely in the gap created by three crates shoved against the wall. The 'good old days' that Midori referred to were probably the days they had spent at an orphanage.

In the slums of the city, you didn't ask questions. But for Kaede, it wasn't hard to guess why Aoi and Midori ran away. In the foster child system, after all, families never took two children together.

Lucy, on the other hand, had never quite understood the concept of family. Instead of Kaede finding her, it was more as if Lucy had found her.

Being homeless wasn't really quite as horrific as most people considered it to be, Kaede thought to herself. They had food, and things to do, and shelter if it ever rained.

"I'm never gonna let you guys go," Kaede said, fiercely.

There was a pause, a lull in the chatter.

"Kaede?" Aoi asked, looking up from the pack of cards he had just pulled out from under his knee, "did you say something?"

"...No," Kaede shrugged, and turned to Lucy and Midori, a faint smile appearing on her face. "But come on now, weren't you two going to show Lucy how to play a card game?"

.

.

Her scissors scratched against the brick in a familiar sound.

"Sharpening your scissors again?" Lucy asked her, squatting by the wall. Kaede did not break her movement, and let the scissor blades scratch against the brick in methodical scrapes.

"You know you never really use them, so there's not much point in sharpening them," Lucy said. She leaned against the wall, cushioning her head from the rough brick with her palm. "And old man Tomu died a long time ago."

"They're still pretty useful if I ever want to defend myself," Kaede defended, shrugging, but she stopped sharpening the scissors. "And besides, the same could be said about your bad habit of stealing. You don't need to."

Lucy giggled, and then looked at her with her big brown eyes, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I guess it's less of something practical and more sentimental?"

"Mmm," Kaede hummed in reply, and shoved the scissors back into her pockets.

"But you're right," Lucy scooted closer to her, and then leaned her head on Kaede's shoulder. "I miss old man Tomu, too. Except I don't have anything to remember him by, so I can't remember his face anymore. At least you have the scissors he gave you."

"It's fine," Kaede replied, shifting her body so she was more comfortable. "I can't quite remember much before I met him," she said honestly. She frowned, and pressed her lips into a thin line.

_- scribbling frantically, a harsh pain in the back of her neck. A feeling of dizziness -_

_._

"Although that's really not important now. It's late and you should sleep, Lucy - "

Lucy clamped her small hands over Kaede's mouth, silencing her.

Kaede frowned at her, surprised at her abruptness, before she stiffened.

Something was wrong. She closed her eyes, feeling the deep hum of the strings around her, shrouding herself as she concentrated. There was a wave of dizziness, but she disregarded it, and was pleased to find that when she opened her eyes, she could see strings stretching from the rooftops and winding around the street.

She found it. A single green thread, coiling around her ring finger. A _threat._

The feeling was thick in her throat. Kaede reached out and grabbed Lucy's hand, and held her breath as her gaze danced from the street to the little girl's calloused palms.

Her stomach plummeted. Kaede bit back panicked gasps, and forced herself to drop Lucy's hands, but she could not look away.

"Kaede?" Lucy asked, confused. "Kaede? What's wrong."

Kaede looked up, saw Aoi and Midori's faces and how they had gone silent, waiting. She felt some kind of desperation worm inside her stomach, and she shoved it down.

"..._Hide,_" she hissed, eyes flickering among the three, and then she was stepping backwards, out of the alleyway into the street, and finally when she could bear it no longer she _grasped _the presence of the thread, so tightly she felt as if her fingers would break.

"Hide," she said, once more, her voice tight, "_please._"

When she turned around, there was no one there. They had, at the very least, fled somehow into the shadows. Kaede breathed softly in relief, and returned her attention to the thread on her finger. Her scissors weighed heavily in her pocket.

It stretched into the distance. Kaede took a deep breath, and began to follow.

.

.

.

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><p>(this has been rewritten because I lost the original chapter 2. Please forgive any discrepancies.)<p>

that being said. I've been a little MIA the past few months. sorry.

updates will remain sporadic. I'm in a little bit of a rut.


	3. Chapter 3

**is author's note has been updated and edited from its original.\**

**This story is set BEFORE the main Canon storyline - as in, Gon has yet to take the Hunter Exam and Hisoka has yet to meet Illumi. However, to save myself from time-consuming research and analysis and conclusions, we're just going to pretend that Hisoka is still somewhat familiar with the Zoldyck family. Please allow this one inconsistency.**

**Enjoy~****  
><strong>

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><p>.<p>

_"Illumi, dear?"_

_"What is it, mother?" The black haired assassin looked up from his seat on the couch to see his mother, standing in the doorway. "What is it?"_

_"We've gotten an order." Kikyo Zaoldyck spoke quickly, the electronic visor around her eyes blinking green. "From a rich businessman."_

_Illumi tilted his head curiously. "Is he seeking to kill political enemies? Or a particularly threatening rebel?" Business officials were always like that; intent on furthering their own wealth and power, even if it meant getting rid of potential obstacles with brutal force._

_"No. In fact -" The visor blinked red. "Apparently, he wants you to get rid of three kids. They're street kids, ones that have been causing an unusual amount of mischief in the backstreets. Two of them are twin boys, apparently with black hair and blue eyes; the little girl has brunette hair. That is all that is currently known."_

_Illumi felt a long and tedious job in the making. "Does he honestly expect us to find and kill these kids with such little information?"_

_"He's paying quite a lot, dear."_

_The assassin stood up, cracking his neck to one side, and then another, keeping his face unnaturally still. "I see. Who is our customer, then? The one who is shoveling out all this money in order to kill a few kids."_

_"His name is Mizuo Hanegawa." His mother said, one gloved hand reaching upwards to adjust her visor. "He offered 80 million."_

_Illumi somehow disliked the sound of that. Perhaps it was a crazy politician, and that kind never paid on time. "That is a rather large sum for a few measly kids. Is this to impress somebody?"_

_The electronic visor blinked red, then green again. "Questions are unnecessary. It's a nice amount. We took the deal."_

_And of course they would. They were assassins after all.  
><em>

.

"Midori?"

The younger brother woke with a start. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep. _Shit. _Sometime while he had been sleeping, the sky had darkened. Something was wrong, he felt it, like the way bread tasted wrong when its insides were full of mold. Wearily, he rubbed his eyes, groping with one hand to ensure that the packet of money was still there. "Lucy? Is that you?"

"Mmhm," came the answering reply. Midori flinched as Lucy's cold fingers patted over his face, clumsily attempting to find him in the dark. For the millionth time he wished Lucy would stop floundering around like a dead fish whenever it was dark. It had given him a fright, to feel icy fingers grasping at him. Like his dream. Had he been dreaming? Something was wrong. But he didn't know what. "What happened to the candle? And where did Kaede and Aoi go? Geez..."

Midori pulled away slightly, catching hold of Lucy's cloak. "I'm right here, Luce. What's going on?" Finding it hard to wake up, he fumbled around, his stiff fingers found the hard base of the unlit candle. Why had it gone out? Had there been a wind? An unexpected movement? Cursing softly, he searched for a match to light the wick. Right. Business. "Did you get any money?"

He heard Lucy sigh dejectedly, and then a small thump as she hopped onto the crate beside him. "The receipts didn't work. The man at the cash register didn't even look at me. He just shooed me away like I was a bug or something..."

At last, his hands found something that resembled a match. With a small hiss of victory, Midori swiped it against the wall, quickly lighting it on the candle's already blackened wick. Light flared in the small alleyway. Squinting at the sudden light, he slowly lowered the candle and turned to Lucy, feeling strangely relieved. Nothing looked out of place. No one was there except for him and Lucy. Absentmindedly, he ran his grimy hands through his hair, trying to chase away the last remnants of the dream. "He didn't? Shit. Well, at least we have Kaede's money..."

"Where _is _she?" Lucy asked, frowning as she hopped onto the crate beside him. Her liveliness could be too much sometimes. "Kaede, I mean. Aoi also disappeared somewhere. Where did they go?"

Midori hesitated. Lucy was a cheerful girl, even if she was not completely innocent. But she was the youngest of them by far, and Midori didn't particularly want to explain to her what had occurred with the knife thrower. Also, she was the last one that had joined their little group. Some things, he decided, were best kept away from the girl. "Aoi should be back soon," he lied lamely, tugging at his ear uncomfortably. "As for Kaede...well, I don't know. But they should be back soon."

Whatever it was, though, Lucy seemed to buy it. A happy smile crossed her face, and she kicked the base of the crate she was sitting on with her heels. "Let's wait, then."

Midori forced a half-smile. "Yeah."

A raven flitted overhead, in search of garbage to eat.

.

Kaede didn't have to walk long. He was waiting there, a hulking shadow that stayed at the edge of the wall. Instinctively, Kaede dipped her fingers into the pocket of her cloak, feeling the cold metal of her scissors. They were tarnished, heavy things, but she kept the blades sharp. "I see you."

Her voice was even, steady, casual even. Her eyes remained on the dark green thread, however, watching it's every movement. Kaede raised her scissors higher, making her final decision - if the man had money, she would steal it. If he didn't, then too bad. He had clothes and, apparently, a weapon. She'd simply knock him out and steal those from him instead...

She should have known. She should have known she should have known sheshouldhaveknownsheshouldhaveturnedaroundandranranranranranran

"You're a bit different than the pictures," the man's voice was unexpectedly gruff and harsh as he stepped out into the light of the streetlamp, and Kaede almost took a step back. If he appeared large in the shadows, his body was practically massive under the light. His clothes were clean and crisp, oddly neat when compared to the rugged background. Something like what a bodyguard would wear.

"I know who you are, Miss Kaede Hanegawa," the man smiled pleasantly. "You've been causing a lot of trouble in these parts lately. Your father is worried..."

Her head barely registered his words. For the oddest reason, Kaede felt her knees going weak, and she stumbled back. Her feet tripped over a stray object, and she went down with a loud _thump._

_._

_What are you doing here?_

.

"You..." her throat was completely dry. Kaede swallowed, and tried again. "You...who do you work for?" her voice turned cold, edged with fear. "Are you an assassin? What is he trying to do now?"

"Please don't make such rash assumptions, Miss Hanegawa. I am but a messenger," the man took a step towards her, and Kaede scrambled to match his movement, shuffling backwards as well, even though her legs still did not have enough strength to support her. "My name is Bismalt. I work for your father."

For more than ten years of her life, not once did her father try to find her. Kaede had accepted it without hesitation, deciding that she could leave her past behind and just _live_. Without interruptions, forgetting her father's last words to her. Kaede realized she was breathing rapidly, and she swallowed quickly as she tried to calm her thudding heartbeat. "...What does he say?" Kaede finally whispered.

_.  
><em>

"He says 'Come back. Your mother is waiting.' "

_Calm. Stay calm._

Kaede exhaled, slowly.

The streetlamp light flickered. The strings shifted into focus.

"She's not my mother," Kaede said quietly, her voice deadly.

Show absolutely nothing. _Nothing._

"If you've dragged me out here just to waste my time," Kaede told the butler, "then I'm afraid our conversation shall end. It's a surprise that you even managed to find me. I have no reason to go back."

"Why have you not returned? It's one thing to run away when you are a silly girl, no older than ten. It's another thing to stay hidden, and in the backstreets. There is no reason for you not to have returned to your father by now."

She bared her teeth in a smile. "You wouldn't understand."

There was fatigue in her bones, a side effect of using the strings for too long a time. Kaede let the threads around her disappear, and the world returned to its normal state.

.

A low whine of annoyance started in Lucy's throat. "Where _are _they? It's already really late. I'm sleepy..."

A small smile appeared on Midori's face, but it quickly disappeared into a worried frown. Why hadn't Aoi come back yet? His palms were sweaty - things happened in the dark alleyways at night, and most of them were never good. What if Aoi had been captured? Beaten? Killed? And then, of course, there was Kaede. The oldest of the group, the one person Midori knew would not betray them. If she was gone...Midori closed his eyes, trying to push away such negative thoughts. But they'd come back, because they always had.

There was a sudden movement from the opening of the alleyway. Both heads turned, and Midori stood up immediately, feeling a wave of relief as he recognized the shape's figure. "Aoi...!" Midori rushed forward to meet his elder twin.

"Aoi...?"

.

"Why don't you come back?" The butler spread his hands, a very non-threatening gesture.

_I have people here. _She had Lucy and the twins, and while the homeless life had its downfalls, there was a certain freedom to it that she wasn't willing to let go. She let her silence be the answer.

"I see," the butler shrugged, the hint of a smile appearing on his face. "Such a pity, then. But you trust your father, right? He's your family after all. Your father really does want you back."

Kaede spat. "Maybe. But _she_ doesn't. Besides, he's in love with her too much. If he wants me back, it's only because he's trying to expand his industry further, right?"

The butler's words flowed over hers, soothing, complacent. As if he were merely lulling her to sleep. "It's true your ability is very rare, and very valuable. But that's not the only reason. He wants his eldest daughter to come back. He'll even tie up your relationships here, make it easier for you to return. After all, you don't _really _need those three children anyway, right? Those twins with black hair and blue eyes; and the little girl with brunette hair."

Faint confusion crossed her features.

This is when she should have run. Instead, Kaede could only part her dry lips in confusion and a little disbelief. "What do you mean? How - What are you planning?"

"They keep you here, don't they?"

He was implying something. Kaede shook her head, swallowed.

"Well, if you _absolutely cannot be persuaded..._"

.

.

.

.

They were already flocking here, the ravens. They could smell the warm flesh that had started to rot, the death that had swept by. And ignoring the souls that still hung over the dark alleyway, they had begun to feed._  
><em>

Neatly arranged next to each other, sitting on the pile of crates. Lucy still had her head on Midori's shoulder, their eyes closed. Not far away sat Aoi, lying facedown in the dirt. Kaede turned her head away, stunned. Her chest felt gaping. They could have been sleeping, but the black needles that protruded from each of their throats marred the thought.

But something was missing. Kaede backed away until her back hit the stone wall, and she slid down the cold surface, eyes unblinking. Yes, there was something missing, something that should of comforted her but only scared her more.

_Why was there no blood?_

.

Four silhouettes cast on the alley's walls, elongated by the meager light of the candle. One of them is breathing hard, her hands pressed tightly against her mouth. The other three don't move.

A cold wind blows from the alley's windows, and the candle goes out. The four silhouettes are plunged into darkness.

* * *

><p><strong>So...I've totally revised this chapter. Because it was complete CRAP the first time around. Sigh, the things you write when you're twelve...in a few years, watch me come back and read what I've written and be like "this is still crap, what are you talking about?" hahaha...<strong>

**whoooo, yup. This is me coming back later and being like "this is actually still crappy. What was I even thinking?" Oh, the woes of inexperience. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning: Angst.**

**Enjoy anyways, and bear with it. Feel free to skip the chapter if you hate angst.**

* * *

><p><em>It was almost too easy. There was no fighting, no warning at all. Illumi simply threw his pins with deadly precision, and that was it. Three more assassinations that he had done in his lifetime.<br>_

_But it made no sense, at least to the assassin. What threat did these kids pose? Illumi turned, noticing a small bundle that lay forlornly on a half-rotted crate. One pale hand reached out and overturned it, exposing a wad of money. Illumi frowned briefly, and then picked up the whole bundle. Money...? Was that why the businessman had wanted these kids dead? It seemed plausible, considering the city's corrupted officials and authorities. Even so, it was a meager amount of money that shouldn't have worried a rich businessman, even it was stolen._

_But there were no questions to be asked in an assassination. They were unnecessary. Illumi turned and walked away, leaving the bodies of his victims as they were.  
><em>

_.  
><em>

The moon sat bright white in the dark sky, devoid of stars as the clouds smothered everything. Only the meager light of the moon pierced through the heavy smog, one hopeless beam that was repeatedly overshadowed, again and again.

The clouds swept the moon into darkness again, the shadows playing across her face. Her green eyes, normally sharp and wary, now stared blankly at the opposite wall. Her cloak was drawn tightly around her shoulders, but she shivered anyway, as if the chill of the night had entered her very bones.

The night had never seemed so long.

So maybe it was the footsteps that made her tense up, or the familiar twitch of the white string that made her turn her head, seeking the person that was sure to be there. Even though she had been expecting it, Kaede still felt a small shiver run down her spine when she saw Hisoka approaching, his steps slow and steady, ghostlike even.

_What was he doing here?_

The sharp clattering of metal against stone made her wince, shifting backwards slightly. Kaede's eyes widened as she saw the object that had been dropped at her feet: the half of the scissors she had thrown at her father's butler a lifetime ago. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Kaede looked up at Hisoka, questioning.

"It's yours, isn't it?" It wasn't really of a question, so Kaede simply _r_eached out to take it, feeling the cold smoothness of the metal seep into her hand.

"I forgot to take it back," she replied quietly.

It was a quiet silence that settled over the two of them. Kaede remained sitting, back to the wall, her cloak drawn around her. The pale bodies of Lucy and the twins lay not far away, their eyes closed, eternally still. Kaede had not dared to look at their faces; she had simply removed the black needles that were stuck in their throats, bandaging the pierced holes that didn't even bleed. They remained in their original clothes. Whoever killed them had taken the all the money as well, as if mocking her feeble attempts to survive. The dark haired girl looked away.

Hisoka's eyes darted to the corpses that were placed in a neat row next to the wall, and instantly seemed to understand.

"Your friends?" he guessed. Kaede flinched without knowing why.

"Friends are worthless," she replied, but her words seemed hollow, even to her own ears. "They were...close acquaintances."

"I see," wordlessly, he closed the gap between them, instead coming to a stop beside her and leaning against the wall. Kaede glanced up at him briefly, a look of unease crossing her eyes, but then her shoulders relaxed and she turned back. Whatever malicious aura there was that afternoon was gone. There was definitely still a trace of it, however, a stinking aura of black threads that lingered in his presence. Kaede thought of running, of walking away, of leaving Hisoka. She didn't want to talk right now, or even listen. Whatever energy that was left in her seemed to have drained.

For some reason, she almost felt comfortable, just sitting by the wall. Safe. No nagging Lucy to bother her, no loud twins that played tricks on her while she tried to sleep. Nothing. Just emptiness; cold blank emptiness, and for some reason Kaede thought that the sensation was extremely familiar. Like the touch of a warm hand after a week in the snow; faintly remembered, but both painful and relieving at the same time.

So maybe that was why she broke the silence first.

"What are you doing here?" the silence shattered, and with it, her brief illusion of comfort. Kaede buried her head in her knees, furiously fighting back the sudden tears that threatened to spill over. _Now I don't even have enough money to bury them. _Her fists clenched, and she pounded the cobblestone ground in frustration. _Don't even have a place to bury them..._

How shameful of her. Breaking down in front of a near stranger? Kaede squeezed her eyes shut, wishing that Hisoka would simply leave her alone. She didn't want anyone looking at her when she was like this, completely defenseless and crying. So vulnerable, like her heart was being ripped bare for everyone to see. So pitiful, so pathetic...

"You were too weak, right?"

Kaede laughed bitterly, a desperate note entering her voice as she replied, "I couldn't even do anything." It was odd, the way he seemed to understand her mixed feelings automatically. Her green eyes flicked towards the red haired man standing next to her. In the pale light of the moon, his skin seemed whiter and even more ghostly. Kaede looked back down at her hands, at the white thread that connected them together. Her next words were a mere whisper. "I was completely useless..."

"Get stronger, then."

Kaede looked up sharply, only to duck to the side as a card thudded into the stone wall beside her. "Wha-?"

But he was already leaving, turning away. "The Celestial Tower gives a lot a money for fighters that wish to enter. It's the quickest way to earn some money, as well as get stronger."

Kaede blinked slowly. "Are you implying I should enter the Celestial Tower...?" She opened her mouth to say 'that's insane' but a cold wave of terror that emanated from Hisoka silenced her immediately. Her eyes widened. A barely stifled gasp whistled through her teeth as she scrambled backwards, her hands drifting towards the pocket that held her scissors instinctively. _Run._

When he turned his head slightly, Kaede could see it in her eyes: the cold bloodlust that swirled inside, like a bloodthirsty demon itching to burst out and feast itself in death and carnage. Her muscles tensed together, coiling as she prepared for the worst.

"Bad luck simply follows you like a shadow, fortune-teller-chan," he chuckled to himself, and a layer of sweat formed on the back of Kaede's neck. "...and I do believe that's what intrigues me. But put away your weapon; I'm barely containing myself here, and the sight of you trying to fight back might be the last string."

Heart in her mouth, Kaede lowered her scissors hesitantly, muscles still tensed to run. Her grip did not loosen, however. All thoughts of Hisoka being remotely nice disappeared. He was simply a monster that resided in a cage that wasn't as sturdy as she would liked - a wild monster that did not like being caged.

A caged demon. Kaede didn't like the sound of that.

Almost imperceptibly, she nodded. It was slight, but it was enough for Hisoka. A playful smile that seemed more menacing than innocent appeared on his face, and he turned away, striding back the way he came.

"I'll be looking forward to it," he said over his shoulder, and Kaede felt a row of goosebumps appear on her arms. "When you get to the 200th level, I mean. I'm almost about to die in anticipation of how much you'll improve...so don't disappoint me."

And just like that, he was gone, as if he had melted into the shadows. Kaede narrowed her eyes, trying to discern his figure from the blackness, but she found it impossible. She heaved a shaky, shuddering breath as she let go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

Hesitantly, her thin bony fingers grasped the card that he had thrown at her, still embedded into the wall. It slid out easily, but it seemed like a regular card. How had it sliced through stone? Her green eyes narrowed in confusion.

Slowly, Kaede turned it so she could see the face of the card.

It was the Queen of Spades.

_Unlucky._ A flicker of hatred appeared on Kaede's face, and she stowed it away in her cloak's pocket, the same place she kept her scissors. Once more, the street fortune teller returned to her place by the wall, resuming her vigil.

The Celestial Tower, he said?

.

.

The Celestial Tower. The Sky Ring. The Heaven's Arena. The 4th highest tower in the world, standing at 991 feet tall. Even though she had seen it from a distance for so much of her life, Kaede never thought she would actually be _entering _it.

In all honestly, why _hadn't_ she tried it? It offered money, after all. But Kaede had always considered herself too weak, too scared to try and test her own abilities against the martial artists in the Tower. After all, there were always dark rumors that surrounded the Arena, rumors of grisly deaths and humans more monster than human.

Ha. Hisoka was probably one of them.

The sun beat down on the cobblestone path, and Kaede drew up her hood with one hand, shading her face from it's glare. In her other hand was a small pouch of coins, what little income she had earned by reading the strings for a few customers that morning. Kaede wished that she could get rid of it as soon as possible. _Run away from pain, and don't let it catch up._

Carefully, Kaede studied herself in a window as she passed by. A girl with short black hair and unsettling eyes stared back. Hesitantly, Kaede touched her face, wincing slightly at how obviously thin she was. Although she had carefully cleaned all the grime off of her hands and face that morning, it was still clear to anyone looking that she was from the poor place of town. Thin and worn out clothes that didn't quite fit, covered by an equally threadbare cloak that provided meager protection from the sun and cold. Kaede turned away, gaze fixed ahead once more. No use dwelling on appearances now. She had no money.

Involuntarily, Kaede shuddered. She had never been this close to the actual city of York Shin before - always staying in the backstreets, because in the city were hundreds of buildings owned by her father's company. Passing by a hotel with the logo of her father's company would do little to ease her guilt. Her father wanted her back? Impossible. Even if he did, she had promised herself that she would never return. Not out of hate for her father - no, her hate had long since faded away into the blurry background of York Shin. Too many things had happened - death, betrayal, corruption - that her own vendetta against her family had grown insignificant.

.

Two years. It took her two years to realize that your destiny isn't always what you want it to be.

_"Hey, hey, big sis. Do you know how to read palms?" An insistent tugging on her left sleeve made Kaede look down, only to see a little boy, only about three years younger than herself. Nine year-old Kaede blinked in surprise.  
><em>

_Kaede studied the little boy's face, wondering if he was joking or not. "No," she admitted, "Although I've had mine read once."_

_The little boy's face fell. "Really?" His face looked so upset that Kaede was suddenly seized with the urge to read his strings, simply to make him feel better. Her long hair swinging, she kneeled down, smiling at him reassuringly._

_"Here." Kaede said, "I don't know how to read palms, but I can still give fortunes. Give me your hand."_

_The little boy's round face looked up at her. Almost solemnly, he nodded and stretched out a chubby hand. Kaede took it, eyes tracing over the boy's fingers, searching. Such an innocent little boy made her wonder what kind of future he'd have. A happy one, surely. Seeing threads...well, she never thought she'd be able to do it again, not after seeing an unraveling string on her mother's hand. Anyway, as long as she could make up a fortune for the little boy, he'd be happy, even if she wasn't quite sure what threads would appear and what they meant. Throwing another smile at the boy, she carefully relaxed her shoulders. It was like pulling a thread from the center of her being; hard to grasp, but fun to experiment with anyways. Dimly, the strings began to form on the boy's hand, like wisps of smoke that disappeared if she looked too hard._

_A yellow thread. Wasn't yellow happy? Good. He'd be happy._

_A red thread. Kaede frowned - red was anger, at least to her. But red could also mean love, right? Maybe that meant he'd grown up and fall in love. And then...the strings flew away for a moment, and Kaede quickly pulled herself back together, irritated that it was so hard to read a little boy's fortune. There were more strings on the boy's hand, but they were too indistinct to make any sense. Kaede frowned in annoyance, and searched harder, looking for the next thread that would resemble any kind of color.  
><em>

_She found it: A single thread, coiled around his index finger...black? Kaede's eyes widened.  
><em>

_The strings flew away like smoke on a wind, and Kaede reached out again with her mind, attempting to see a bit more before they disappeared altogether. The feeling left her, however, only to be replaced with a cold sinking feeling. Her smile had all but disappeared. A black thread? But black meant death; at least, that was what flew to her mind the instant she saw it. _Impossible,_ she thought, glancing at the boy's cheerful grin. _He's not going to die. Is he?

_Kaede swallowed forcefully, attempting another halfhearted smile. "You have a wonderful future." She said, trying to smile with more conviction. "You'll grow up into a handsome young man, and then marry a beautiful lady. You'll earn lots of lots of money and get everything you want. But be careful! You'll have to work hard every day for this future, understand?"_

_The boy nodded_, _his hand slipping free. "Got it, big sis! Ne, how did you know? You're not reading my palm or anything."_

_Kaede smiled, although this time she didn't bother to try to make it happy. "I see strings." She explained. "Colored strings, and they'll tell me what your future is."_

_"That's so cool!" The boy exclaimed, staring at his own hands in wonder. "Can you change it, then? If you can see it, can you change it? Not that I want my future to be changed." He said quickly, "I like my future."_

_"I-" Kaede paused. "I don't know." She shrugged truthfully. "I've never tried. Hey, if I get scissors, do you think I'll be able to cut some bad luck threads?"_

_"Well, there's an old man around the corner who always sells random trinkets." The boy said cheerfully, "He might know. He knows a lot of stuff. Thanks, big sis, but I have to go!" And then he was off and running again, dodging easily between the crowds. Kaede watched him disappear, an indescribable feeling in her gut._

_He wasn't going to die, was he? Death was all too real. Her mother was testimony of that. Knowing that he would die, and not telling him...Kaede leaned back against the wall, surprised by the sudden tears that welled up in her eyes. Surely black threads didn't  
><em>always_ mean death. It could have just been a negative thing, like bad luck. Or it could be something like her father's business suits: black and professional like. Troubled by these thoughts, Kaede headed towards the corner, searching for the old man who could give her some scissors._

_She never met the little boy again._

.

"Miss?"

Kaede jerked back to attention, blinking as she regained focus. "Ah!" She said in surprise, feeling her cheeks flush, "sorry." Hastily, she pulled out all the money she had left, handing it to the man at the station. "I want a ride to the Celestial Tower."

The man took her pouch of coins, weighing it before pointing her in the right direction. "Number 3 on the right." He said, "It's automatic, so just have a seat and wait."

She nodded thankfully, her hood falling back as she stepped through the gateway. _Number 3, Number 3..._ scanning the rows of airships, she spotted the one that had a giant yellow '3' painted on its side. Almost hesitantly, she hopped in, carefully shutting the door behind her.

With a small roar, the airship began to lift, the shackles that held it to the ground retracting to let it free. Kaede blinked in surprise, then rushed to look out the window. She was already steadily climbing, higher and higher, floating towards the looming Celestial Tower. Unaccustomed to the sudden feeling of weightlessness, Kaede sat back into her seat, clutching at a beam for support.

.

Four years. It too her four years to realize that fate was fickle.

_She was huddled in the corner of the damp alley, scissors clutched tightly to her chest. The sun made her shadow seem so long, so tall. Kaede stretched out a hand, watching it turn long and skinny and bony, then turned it to the side so the shadow became fat and thick.  
><em>

_"These are special scissors." The old man had said. "See this little thing in it that makes it swivel? If you pull with the right pressure, it'll snap apart. It doesn't have much use, of course, but it's sharp enough. Here, have it."_

_Now it was clenched tightly in her hand. Eleven years old, and already holding a weapon. How strange - Kaede would have never thought she'd be like this when she grew older. But everything had gone wrong somehow, starting with her mother's coughing and the black string. A finger hooked through each ring, and she pulled - (snap!) - the scissors came apart neatly. With a sigh, Kaede clicked them back together. _Life was hard. Food was hard to come by, but she had become accustomed to the constant foraging, thieving and whatnot. Rules and civility disappeared when it came to the backstreets. Already, her childhood plumpness had started to disappear, replaced all too quickly by a gaunt, thin look_  
><em>

_"News!" Someone shouted in the distance, "News!" Kaede looked up, and slowly got to her feet. Hurriedly, she headed towards the sound. There was no money to buy a newspaper, of course, but if she stayed for long enough it would reach her ears eventually._

_The place was a bustle of activity, from people shouting to more people shouting and talking and buying and selling and watching and walking and whatnot.  
><em>

_Already, there was a line of people waiting to buy the daily newspaper. Kaede settled down by a wall, watching everything with interest._

_"Mm?" A lady that had just bought a newspaper gestured excitedly to her husband. "Look at this! Mizuo Hanegawa has gotten himself a new wife!"_

_Kaede's green eyes widened. A very cold sliver of ice seemed to have gotten lodged in her throat. Dad? A new wife? Impossible. He'd never do that, not when he loved her mother so much. Her hands suddenly sweaty, Kaede stood up, moving quickly. Her dad would never get a new wife, not when he loved mother so much. Definitely not...but she had to check._

_A rumble of thunder in the distance. Kaede glanced up, squinting at the overcast clouds. Rain would fall soon.  
><em>

_._

_Fate was fickle._

_Piercing green eyes met clear blue ones, and the blue ones recoiled in shock. But then something changed; something in those clear blue eyes clouded over. Mizuo Hanegawa turned around and faced his new wife instead._

_She was a pretty thing; high cheekbones and milky white skin, decorated by dark coils of hair that was twisted up in a loose bun. Petite, but definitely happy. The way she smiled, the way she looked at her dad; the way her father looked at her back. Kaede stood stiffly behind the garden hedge, watching as the person who replaced her mother sat down and sipped her cup of tea.  
><em>

_There was the dullest thump as her knees gave out. Kaede landed forcefully on the ground, the jarring impact making her wince. Her head felt light, somehow. How long had it been since she'd run away? A few weeks? A month? _It was just a joke,_ she thought haphazardly to herself, _I only ran away as a joke because I thought he'd look for me; I thought he'd find me and then I could go home and everything would be over...

_She didn't belong there. She didn't even belong in her own house._

_So where _did_ she belong?  
><em>

_Kaede turned and ran. As far as she could, not knowing if she was really running or not. Or what she was running from, or where she was going to run. Just to get away, to forget, to pretend as if she didn't understand what had happened. And even as she ran, her hawk-like eyes glanced down at her hand, searching. The single yellow thread that connected her to her father, where was it? The one she thought would never disappear.  
><em>

_Somehow it had gone; blown away like the smoke from a candle.  
><em>

_The strings faded away, and she was relieved. _Kaede closed her eyes and kept on running.__

.

"Please fill out this form, and return it to the front desk." The lady at the counter said, and handed her a sheet. The room was filled with people - mainly men, each of them eying each other as if they were bitter enemies. Which, Kaede considered, was probably true. This was an arena, where you fought in order to get money. She turned around, looking at the giant line behind her, and sighed. Kaede glanced over the sheet she was supposed to fill out. It had been provided with a pencil, and she carefully laid it out on the counter.

Name? _Kaede. _Age? She hesitated, trying to remember. Days were really a blur when it came down to survival...shrugging, Kaede placed down the best estimate. _19._ Gender?_Female._

Years of fighting experience? _None._ Kaede paused, thinking of all the times she'd really been fighting. Chewing her bottom lip, she placed her pencil down. She hadn't fought like_that, _though. Just saying she didn't know how to fight was enough for now.

Kaede handed it back to the lady at the counter, and returned to her seat.

.

Six years. It took her six years to realize that no matter what you did, no matter how you struggled, your fate was the one thing that could not be altered.

_She winced as she looked at the old man's hand, so pale and wrinkled. It was warm._

_It wouldn't stay warm much longer._

_Kaede didn't know what to say, staring at the unraveling threads before her. It was easier to summon the ability to see the strings, now. Almost as easy as breathing. Yet sometimes, she wished she didn't have the ability at all - and this was one of those moments.  
><em>

_Kaede bit her lip, and looked away. It was clear now that a black thread meant murder, and she found comfort in the fact that the old man had no black threads on his veined hands._ _In fact, his hands were glittering with colored strings, each one sparkling with kind and warm emotions. Wrapped closely around his palms, coiled in his fingers, snaking through his bony knuckles - it was beautiful, and Kaede couldn't help but notice that her own hands, clasped tightly around his, had none. None at all. As if she hadn't made a single friend or rival or acquaintance over the past few years...which was true, because Kaede had promised herself to never never open herself up to anyone, even the old man. The moment the hint of a thread had appeared between them, Kaede had withdrawn, hiding decidely behind a wall of iron.  
><em>

_"How much more time?" The question startled Kaede, and she looked back at the old man._

_"Time until you...?" Her voice trailed off into a heavy silence. Kaede glanced down at his hands, realizing that the unraveling threads were almost nothing but frayed shreds of string now, no longer wound up and coiled into neat, healthy threads. Even as she watched, one thread slowly slipped from the old man's finger, falling to the floor and disappearing. She swallowed tightly. "A few days; a week at best." Kaede replied quietly. "I..." What was she going to say? 'I'm sorry?' 'I'll be sad?' 'Don't die?' What would words do? Nothing would stop those threads from unraveling, one by one. Never before had Kaede felt so helpless._

_"Those scissors..." The old man began, and once more Kaede looked up. "Do you still have them?"_

_"I do." Kaede said, nodding fiercely so that her short dark hair shifting from one side to the other. Her fingers tightened on the old man's hands. "I use them every day. Thank you for giving me them."_

_"I remember you when you were little."_

_Kaede nodded, a sad smile appearing on her face. No words came to her mind, so she said none. The old man continued._

_"You were eight, if I remember correctly. That was...what, five years ago?"_

_"Six years ago."_

_"Six years ago." He echoed, nodding slightly. "And you asked me for scissors. And what was funny was, I did have a pair of scissors, although how I got them escapes me..." His feeble voice trailed off, and the old man closed his eyes, falling into a deep slumber. Kaede smiled, and let go of his hand. He'd need his rest.  
><em>

_And then she leaned down, dark hair covering her face so no one would notice the tears that refused to fall that appeared in her eyes. Because fate was unavoidable, unchangeable, unalterable. No matter what you did._

_The old man would die. The person who had given her her scissors, changed her life in so many ways - he'd disappear, his threads vanishing from existence altogether. Kaede looked down at her hands again, knowing that even if she searched and searched, there would not be a colored thread that connected her to the old man.  
><em>

.

It took her two years to realize that your destiny isn't always what you want it to be, four years to realize that fate was fickle, and six years to realize that no matter what you did, no matter how you struggled, your fate was the one thing that could not be altered.

And for some reason, that was that. What was the point of defying it if it never changed? What was the point of standing against it when it was unavoidable?

.

So she ran. And she never looked back, even though it sickened her.

* * *

><p><strong>ANGST.<strong>

**- Colorii**


	5. Chapter 5

"Numbers 25768 and 84762, please come down to the arena."

Kaede snapped to attention, and then looked down at the paper that had her number on it. _84762. _Her.

What a hectic place this was - from the sheer amount of people, it seemed that the tower wasn't filled with creepy people like she thought it was. Sighing, the short haired girl took off her cloak, stowing it safely under the seat. It would only hamper her movements. Quickly, Kaede stood up and made her way down the steps towards the arena.

"Miss?"

Kaede looked up at the man that blocked her way, confused. "What is it?"

The tall guard coughed, gesturing to her scissors that remained clutched in her hands. "Are those meant as a weapon? You cannot use a weapon for the first 200 levels, as stated by the rules..."

A moment of panic seized her, and her grip tightened instinctively. No weapons? Kaede's brain quickly flashed through all her memories of fighting without her scissors, and found herself lacking terribly. "Ah..." Kaede bit her lip, a feeling of unease welling in her stomach, "Right. I forgot. Sorry." Her palms were sweaty as she returned to her place in the audience, placing her scissors with her cloak under the seat.

"Okay." She said, the slightest tremor in her voice betraying only a fraction of the anxiety that had piled up in her stomach, "Which square am I going to?"

.

It was weird being in this place after so long. Had it only been two days since Lucy, Aoi, and Midori had died? She thought of their cold bodies hidden in the alley, felt her blood freeze with the horror of it. The liveliness of the Celestial Tower seemed so impossible compared to what she had been through. That cold night in silent vigil. Had her life really ever happened?

Kaede took a deep breath to calm herself as she stepped onto the ring, acutely aware of the fact that her face was illuminated by the thousands of lights that covered the stadium's ceiling. _What can I do without my scissors?_ Kaede forced down panic. She felt lost without them, without that one reminder of her past life. It made her situation even more surreal, even more dreamlike. _Why did I ever give them up? I should have brought them here. I shouldn't have left them. What am I doing here?_

The sharp crackle of the speaker jolted her back to reality, making her focus. Right. Business. Kaede stared her opponent down, trying to gauge whether she could knock him down or not. Brown hair, average build. Okay, so he wasn't much of a bodybuilder. Kaede eyed longingly at his boots, which looked sturdy and firm, and probably really warm. Her green eyes glanced down at her own feet - bare, because she was unable to afford shoes. All she had on was a simple black cami and worn, baggy pants. Well, hopefully that would change once she earned some money.

She reminded herself of her situation again, taking another deep breath. She was in the ring. The present. A fight. _Just knock him unconscious. The rest would come later.  
><em>

Another crackle startled her so badly that she jumped. She really_ was _freaking out, wasn't she? Damn Hisoka.

The referee was saying something; probably reiterating the rules Kaede had already been told. With an uncomfortable shrug, Kaede fixed her gaze on her opponent. _I hate going against these types. I'll have to strike first. If this drags on, I definitely won't win..._

A shrill whistle pierced the air, accompanied by a sudden roar from the crowd. The loud signal startled her, made her hesitate. Her opponent, obviously more experienced, was the first to react. He lunged forward, fist lashing out in a direct path to her stomach.

But fear made her faster. Kaede ducked under his arm and scrambled forward, turning around quickly and kicking the man's leg as hard as she could. To her chagrin, the man only stumbled a bit, and didn't fall down.

No matter. With as much force as she could muster, Kaede lunged forwards relentlessly, turning at the last second so that her heel slammed neatly into the guy's stomach.

He didn't move.

Instead, something heavy and blunt slammed into the side of Kaede's head. A choked gasp of pain tore out of her throat, and Kaede tilted dangerously before regaining her footing. _Wha...?_

_Shit._ Kaede scrambled back, crouching down low as she realized that her attack had been too light. Her head was spinning, probably an aftereffect after the man had hit the side of her head. Kaede reached up, gently touching the area where she was hit. A spasm of pain met her touch, and Kaede quickly withdrew, a frown creasing her face. Her attention returned to her opponent.

Kaede took a deep breath, her muscles tensing. The dizziness subsided, albeit only slightly. Her brain started running in full panic mode. How could she knock him out of the ring now that she couldn't surprise him anymore? She forced herself to focus, her cautious eyes carefully tracking her opponent's every twitch and move, shifting her position slightly to match his movement. She had lost an advantage. For now, all she could do was try and avoid any attacks that came her way...

"[A clean hit from this contestant! Very well done!]"

A loud whoop that came from the audience nearly made Kaede lose her concentration. Her opponent glanced towards the audience briefly, his attention momentarily drawn away as he searched for the caller.

.

It's like trying to steal a cookie. Kaede didn't know how to steal things quietly, but she did know that when you see a chance, you take it, no matter if it is a split second or a minute. Kaede's leg swept out in a wide, graceful arc, connecting with the man's ankles with a sharp and sudden _crack_, throwing him off balance. Without even realizing what exactly was happening, the man found himself flat on his back, sucking in deep breaths of air that seemed devoid of oxygen, wincing as tiny sparks of pain shot towards his head.

He floundered, coming dangerously close to taking her down with him. Kaede kept on moving, letting her panic rule her actions. With a frightened gasp, Kaede squeezed her eyes shut and slammed her foot into her opponent's side with a vicious _thud_, kicking him out of the ring. She heard something crack, and a vicious part of her, a voice that hated everyone in the tower right now, hoped that she had broken one or two of his ribs.

From the looks of the sickly expression that appeared on the guy's face before he flew backwards and keeled over the side of the ring, she actually had broken a rib or two. For one moment, Kaede felt pretty proud of herself. It wasn't everyday that you get to kick someone out of a ring, even if your opponent was distracted and ninety percent of your success was thanks to sheer panic. Kaede lowered her foot, feeling almost as surprised as the referee. Her vision swirled, separating into disconnected fragments of color as the blood pounding in her ears faded away, taking her adrenaline rush with her.

But the colors stayed there, blurry and indistinct, unable to clear. A wave of exhaustion poured over Kaede, and she staggered dangerously to the side - or was it the front?

Something was wrong.

.

A warm hand latched onto Kaede's shoulder, keeping her steady. Kaede glanced up into what looked like the face of the referee. Blinking, the dark-haired girl shook her head and tried to dispel the dizziness. Slowly, the referee's voice became clearer.

"-Kaede, wasn't it? That was very good. You may advance to the 30th floor; here is your ticket." His voice was still muted; as if she was underwater and her ears were clogged.

Her head started spinning again. _Right. He hit me at my temple..._ "Ah..." Kaede managed, taking the ticket with slow and deliberate fingers, "Yeah...okay."

And then everything faded, flickering in and out of focus like a poorly designed video game once more. Almost painfully, Kaede walked out of the ring and returned to her seat, groping blindly around for her cloak and scissors. Barely managing to keep herself upright, she staggered down the hallway, trying to keep the throbbing ache in her head at bay. The world around her continuously faded in and out, a never-ending series of confusing colors that refused to combine into one coherent image.

_Clear, dammit! _Kaede leaned against the wall, letting the sudden coldness of it keep her awake. Slowly, her vision began to return, growing clearer and clearer. What the heck had happened? She had seen people get hit at the temple before; and that usually killed a fight immediately. Kaede breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she did not have to fight soon. Something would definitely go wrong, and she didn't want it to happen in the ring.

She pushed herself off the wall to keep on moving, searching for the elevator, wishing desperately for a place to sit down. The weight of it all, the consequences of her win, the trip here, all that had happened in the last two days, it was beginning to come back again. She didn't know how to deal with it, didn't know why the world had to move so fast when she just wanted to...

The shiny grey metal of an elevator stopped her in her tracks. She looked up at the elevator, staring dubiously at the buttons. This would bring her to the 30th floor. She shuddered, thinking of cold passageways and grey stones and the feeling of emptiness. To tell the truth, she didn't want something to go wrong in there either...

.

"Only 152 jenis?" Kaede frowned, disappointed, as she looked at the few coins in her palm. She looked up at the ticket vendor, where she had been directed to exchange her ticket for money. "I know it was only the first floor, but I was expecting something better than that..." 152 jenis wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. She felt the time slipping away from her grasp, as if each hour that passed left her old world farther and farther behind. But she still had something that she needed to do.

The ticket vendor shrugged, but a new voice intruded to explain. "They give you the same amount on the first floor, whether you lose or not."

Kaede turned, even though she had heard enough of his voice to recognize him anywhere. A small smile appeared on her face - even if he _was_ a monster, knowing that there was someone she knew in the giant arena comforted her greatly.

"Hisoka," she said, inclining her head slightly. He looked the same, although his slitted eyes seemed much less menacing. _He's in a good mood...?_ Kaede glanced away quickly, realizing that it was rude to stare.

"I still have your card," she said abruptly, trying to shake the sense of security that enveloped her. Laziness would get her killed here, she knew that. It was simply far too easy to slip into informality, especially when the strings she saw told her that this person would not kill her, and that they would meet again. She reached into the pocket of her cloak, looking for Hisoka's poker card. "The Queen of Spades. Did-"

"Keep it."

Kaede frowned, but straightened back up slowly, suspicious. "Are you sure? You won't have a complete deck unless I give it back..."

Kaede's eyes narrowed, their green hue oddly luminescent under the pale light. _Something's really off about him._ Maybe it was the lack of the usual edge Hisoka had around him_; _that cold, merciless feeling that alienated him from the rest of the world. Almost reluctantly, Kaede glanced down at his hands, allowing the strings to flash into focus for a brief moment.

Her blood went cold. _Black. _There were so many snipped black threads now. More than last time._ Much more than last time. _A few days ago, when she had looked at his hands, she had still managed to pinpoint some flashes of colored strings. Now, Kaede couldn't tell at all; Hisoka's scarred hands were tangled in so many black threads that the few meager flashes of color had been covered up.

Drowned in a sea of black blood.

Kaede looked away, feeling sick. Her mouth had gone dry. Once more, she was reminded of who this person was. _The next thing I do, _she told herself, _will be to find out more about this Hisoka. _

Kaede wanted to take a step back from Hisoka, but took a deep breath of air instead. "Well?" she demanded, forcing herself to stare directly into his face and not flinch, "what do you want?"

His cold marble face gave way to a demeaning smirk. "I think it would be much more interesting if you could use weapons in battle, ne~?" _You'll think of something._ His eyes roved over Kaede's body, and this time she gave out, taking a small step back. "Well...other than that nasty bump on your head, you were rather unhurt in the first fight, so chances are you'll be scheduled for another fight today."

Kaede didn't like the way he stared at her. _Like some raving hyena who's craving for dinner. _The dark-haired girl shifted uneasily, and crossed her arms over her chest, the heat rising to her cheeks. "Then I should be going."

Hisoka stepped to the side, smiling like a gentleman - _damn him!_ - and let Kaede pass.

.

"[Kaede and Jal, floor 31, fighting room A.]"

Kaede looked up at the speaker mounted up at the wall, a flicker of unease passing through her body. Sighing, she glanced around the room, looking for the person that she would have to fight. With trepidation, she noticed that the only man that stood up was tall and heavily muscled, with a disgusting sneer on his face. Kaede narrowed her eyes. Arrogance? Perhaps. Her critical gaze glanced at his feet -_ shoes! -_, evidently clad in high class leather. This man was rich already. Why would he want to be here?

She hated high class shit. Her recent encounter with Hisoka was only just beginning to remind her of that hatred. Rich, wealthy, powerful, lucky people were the worst. She wanted nothing to do with them. Kaede fed that hatred, let herself sink into it, let it wrap around her like a protective cloak. She was slowly beginning to realize that flashy wins were better than steady ones, and so she needed to pull out all the stops for this one.

The bright lights in the arena cascaded down on her face, accompanied by the telltale roar of the crowd. It was so loud; so loud that Kaede couldn't hear her own heartbeat anymore. The short-haired girl flinched away from the noise, hating it, the way it distracted her. The crowd was screaming, their raucous cries and loud whoops of encouragement only worsening the headache left over from the last fight.

"A girl?" The man - Jal? - in front of her was laughing, and Kaede stiffened automatically, acutely aware of her threadbare clothes and bare feet. To him, she surely looked like someone from the slums, unworthy of notice and mention. Dirty, filthy, low and disgusting. The worst of the worst. Under the bright false lights, it seemed that the difference was made even more starkly clear.

She felt sick with the hatred. Sick and tired and so fiercely confused that she wasn't even quite sure what she was doing. What was she thinking, coming here of all places? Hisoka had said that she needed the money, and it was true; she needed the money.

Kaede paused. Why _did _she need the money?

.

The first answer that came to her mind - the _only _answer that came to her mind - was the only one she didn't want to think of.

_I need to bury them._

Something hard and cold clamped itself around Kaede's chest.

.

"Hey, mister," she said quietly, pointing. "Look to your right."

The moment he did, she lunged.

.

She wasn't good at fighting - in fact, she was downright terrible at it - but at least she knew how to play dirty.

Kaede barreled into him, one bony hand reaching up to grab the man's ear. With a vicious twist of her arm, she pulled his head down, her fingernails digging deep into his skin. Before the man could react, she lashed out with her other hand, pushing her thumb as forcefully as she could into the man's eye. Something heavy slammed into her side, but Kaede only strengthened her grip, stabbing deeper into Jal's eye, ignoring the spasm of pain that shot through her ribs.

A low roar of pain, and then another strike to her side. Kaede stumbled this time, letting her fingers out of Jal's eye with a disgusting squelch. Jal lashed out in a single, sharp movement, his forearm slamming into Kaede's stomach.

A choked sound came out of her throat as Kaede flew backwards, slamming into the ground with a sickening crack. The next instant, Kaede found herself squinting, eyes blinking rapidly against the glare of the lights as her vision began to clear. Her lungs screamed in protest as she tried to breath, tried to regain her lost air.

"[Oooh! A vicious exchange of blows from both sides! It's a clean hit and down for Kaede, which gives Jal 2 points! But fighter Jal is also heavily wounded! One eye has been disabled - a critical hit! 2 points go to Kaede as well!]"

Kaede blinked, glancing to the side. Slowly, she tried to move. Toes, knees, legs, back. Fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders. Neck? Slowly, Kaede turned her head, squinting up at the announcer. Her neck seemed to move just fine.

"[As you might know, with the rules of points and KO are taken in count of the clean hits, critical hits, and the downs. The clean hits are 1 point each, and the critical hits are worth 2 points. if there's a down after, it's one additional point...]"

"Can you continue?"

The referee's face swung into her line of vision. Kaede stared upwards blankly, confused. _Continue? Oh..._

She hopped up immediately, the referee swinging his head back to avoid getting hit by her. Kaede reached down to feel her bruised side, wondering if it would hamper her movements. It didn't hurt too badly, not until she poked it deliberately. Kaede twisted experimentally, mildly pleased that she could still move. "Of course."

"[If a total of ten points is reached, then the fighter is declared the winner. Of course, if the fighter is declared unfit to continue the match, he's declared as KOed.]" Again with the announcer lady. Kaede stepped forward, eyes tracking Jal's every movement. Well, at least she knew what she had to do now. _Get ten points. _Thank god it wasn't like the first round, where you had to knock your opponent out of the ring in order to win.

Kaede kept her eyes on opponent, unwilling to let him so much as twitch without her noticing. Jal was now stumbling awkwardly to the side, one large hand covering the eye that Kaede had stabbed into. Carefully, Kaede walked to her right - his blind side. Jal swung around clumsily to match her movement, trying to keep her in his line of sight. Kaede continued forwards anyway, hoping that when she got close enough, she could somehow attack and get enough points before she was thrown off again.

Jal muttered a string of incomprehensible sounds, most of them quite shocking considering his upbringing. He couldn't see far with one eye closed, after all. One hand covered his bleeding eye.

Kaede slowly advanced further, keeping a wary eye on Jal's movements. In this case, it was clear who had the physical advantage. Kaede was good at running away, but absolutely terrible at fighting in a proper fight.

Which called for dirty methods. Kaede gauged the distance between Jal and her carefully, deciding how close she would have to be in order to hit him. If she did try to land a blow, he'd certainly want to counterattack.

What a bother. In a decisive, fluid motion, Kaede stepped forward and kneed her opponent sharply between the legs.

A howl of pain tore through the air, but Kaede didn't stop. One bony hand grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled down sharply, eliciting a sharp yelp of pain from Jal. He lashed out, one thick hand circling around her throat and squeezing mercilessly.

The world went white. Kaede's hand slipped away, only to bang against Jal's arm, clawing at it while her other hand frantically struggled to pry his fingers off of her neck. _I can't - breathe! _Choked whimpers tore out of her throat. Kaede summoned the last of her energy, and kicked fiercely at his ankle.

His grip loosened momentarily, but it was enough. Kaede threw herself away from Jal, landing unsteadily.

Oh, sweet air! Kaede sucked in ragged lungfuls of oxygen, coughing violently. The sudden intake air burned her throat, but she didn't care. Her mind was still slightly dizzy. _Didn't - expect him - to choke me!_

But that was only natural. Kaede took a final, last gulp of precious, precious air, and lunged again.

It was a psychological thing. Kaede had lived enough of her life on the outskirts of the Celestial Tower to know that when it came to fighting, the more scared you made your opponent, the better. Jal instinctively twisted to the side, guarding his injured eye with one hand while his other tried to ward off Kaede.

Kaede pivoted on her right foot, her knee snapping straight so that her left foot went under Jal's guard and slammed into his side with a satisfying _thunk_.

With a grunt of pain, Jal keeled over, landing heavily on the tiled floor.

Kaede was panting heavily from the effort, and slowly lowered her foot. A faint smile formed at the edge of her lips. Was this actually working? It was almost too funny, having this big, muscled man lose simply because she was fighting with such underhanded methods. When she fought like this - tooth and nail and like a cheater - she almost felt like herself again. The fortune teller in the backstreets of the city that was always confident and sure of herself, who knew what she was doing.

"[Fighter Kaede has been playing dirty! However, the referee rules it as three clean hits and a down, which brings her score to a total of 6! What a surprise - Kaede is in the lead!]"

This time, the referee knelt down beside Jal.

_Don't get up._ Kaede stared him down as if the force of her glare could keep him down, _If you do...!_

.

"Congratulations," the ticket vendor passed her a bundle of money. It felt heavier, this time. Kaede took it and weighed it, considering.

"Your next match will be at three tomorrow; please come a few minutes early in order to prepare. Will you be staying in a nearby hotel?" The ticket vendor asked.

Kaede shook her head, "I'm leaving."

"Why?"

Kaede paused, her green eyes carefully scrutinizing the bundle of money she held in her hands. "I have some unfinished business."

And then she was out, back into the streets of the city.

.

"A lighter?" The boy at the counter glanced at her dirty appearance skeptically, hesitating. "What is it for?"

"Burning something, obviously," Kaede snapped at him, punctuating her words with a glare that caused the boy to recoil slightly. "Just hurry up and tell me where they are."

It was odd, to be in a convenience store with the intention to buy something rather than steal it. Kaede tapped her foot impatiently, her eyes roving the store's many objects, wondering briefly how the twins would have stolen them. She herself had never really been the thief of the group. Kaede glanced away, her hands reaching into her cloak to feel the heavy bundle of money concealed in her pocket. Yes, that was right...she had never figured out how to steal things well; because she had been the only one to actually earn money.

Certainly, Midori would be the one at the counter, making his usual ruckus and distracting everyone's attention while Aoi pocketed as much as he could, skillfully making things disappear into his coat without anyone noticing. Kaede realized with a pang of guilt that she had always considered their daily loots something ordinary, and had never really considered how much danger they were putting themselves in.

But - as always - there was no time for regrets. Wordlessly, Kaede paid for the lighter, and returned to the streets.

.

They were still there, hidden behind the crates where Kaede had left them. Funny how the crows hadn't even finished their job, leaving the three bodies painfully intact, their faces calm and quiet. Kaede flipped open the lighter's lid, and clicked it, watching the tiny light flicker and waver in the air before settling into a warm blue flame.

The first tongue of flame flickered, rising higher and higher until it had all but consumed the pile of crates. Kaede watched them burn, not knowing whether she had done the right thing or not.

But it felt appropriate. Kaede smiled, albeit sadly. "I'm sorry I couldn't afford a proper burial," she said out loud, wondering if they could hear her through the roar and crackle of the flames. Wondering if two day old corpses still had a semblance of a soul.

She did not believe in the afterlife. Dead people were dead, and they would never come back. The dark haired girl closed her eyes, feeling the heat from the fire wash over her face.

But being like this, sitting with her back to the wall like she used to, feeling the warmth of the fire lick against her face...

She could almost believe she had been forgiven, somehow.


	6. Chapter 6

**Timeskip.**

* * *

><p><em>She'd never come back to the arena. It didn't worry him, but it made him curious all the same.<br>_

_Why? She had been progressing so nicely...didn't she know that there was nothing better than the thrill of advancing higher and higher, tearing down opponent after opponent and feeling the thrill of dyeing your hands in blood that you've shed yourself? Didn't she need money? Wasn't she there for the sake of becoming stronger?_

_Thunk. A card imbedded itself deeply into the wall. Hisoka began to cackle quietly, hiding his amusement behind a set of fanned out cards. If so...then for what reason would she disappear for so long?_

_.  
><em>

"Shall I read your fortune, lady?"

The woman in the red dress turned, evidently surprised. Her bright, if slightly vacant eyes glanced around before alighting on the speaker. At first glance, it was a thin, dark-haired teenager, sitting by the wall with her shoulders wrapped in a cloak. Looking into her unsettling green eyes, however, the woman decided that this girl must be closer to reaching young adulthood than the midst of adolescence. "Me?"

A smile graced the girl's face as she nodded, and the woman moved closer, studying her face. The girl's face was thin from malnourishment, but it was clear that she would have been pretty if she was well-fed and taken good care of. Her eyes softened. Poor children. The woman took a few steps closer. Was the girl a fortune teller? Indeed, from the blanket spread on the ground and the few coins that littered the fabric, she seemed like she was.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt," the lady said, and then squatted down, adjusting her dress. "So, what am I to do?"

"Give me your hand. It doesn't matter which one."

She obliged, and was surprised to find that the girl's grip was decidedly firm around her wrist, despite looking small and frail. The lady glanced up at the girl, wondering what was going to happen.

The girl studied her hand for a moment, frowning as she concentrated. The faint hint of suspicion entered the lady's mind. Usually, things like fortune-telling were always a sham, but this one felt odder than most. Her hand was tingling, a sensation that she was unused to. What exactly was happening? She studied her hand, wondering what the fortune-teller saw. A sign? Good luck? Bad luck?

At last, the fortune-teller looked up, a smile appearing on her face. "Miss, have you found your true love yet?"

The woman blushed, a million thoughts coming to her mind. Of all questions, why the one she was most unsure of? "N-no..." She shook her head, her bright pearl earrings swinging from side to side.

"Really?" Under the fortune-teller's unsettling stare, the lady felt the blood rush to her cheeks, her faint blush deepening to a red.

She stammered, glancing away nervously. "He's not - he probably doesn't -"

"Well, don't worry!" The fortune-teller's grip on her hand loosened, and the lady resisted the urge to snatch her hand back. "It might not seem like it, but the thread connecting you two is a beautiful shade of red. Don't worry about whether or not he really loves you, okay? Just continue on with your life, and remember that no matter what happens, you can trust him." Her grip tightened, "Okay? Don't ever lose faith in him - it'll be your downfall."

The lady withdrew slightly, unsettled by the force in the fortune-teller's tone. "...okay," she said meekly. The fortune-teller's grip loosened again, and the woman slid her hand out of her grasp. As she stood up, the lady noticed the odd sheen of sweat of the girl's forehead. Was it the heat? The lady frowned briefly - no, that couldn't be. It was November now, approaching winter, and the temperatures had fallen considerably. Must be the cloak. The poor girl was overheating. Yes, that was it. Couldn't be anything else.

She paused before turning to go, recognizing the look the fortune-teller was giving her. "Oh!" she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out some coins, "yes. Thank you."

Kaede swiped the coins offered to her away into her cloak, smiling. "_...my pleasure._"

.

It had been two months.

Two months since she had burned their bodies. Two months since she had met Hisoka, entered the Heaven's Arena for a day, and then left without a word. Two months to wait, to sit and do nothing. Two whole months, to plot.

Kaede allowed herself to lean back against the wall, eyes closing tiredly.

_Nen. _What a foreign word. But whenever she was using it, she felt closer to it than anyone. Kaede glanced down at her fingers. The strings were still glowing.

"This is harder than I thought it would be," she muttered to herself. Who knew reading strings so determinedly would make her so tired? But using it also filled her with a kind of excitement she'd never felt before. The feeling was similar to tearing away the wrappings of a Christmas present, the way that a little kid felt as he wondered what kind of gift there would be. Before, she'd never tried actively searching for threads. She had just looked at the surface, the most prominent strings, and focused on those. Kaede stretched her hands out in front of her. But she had found that if she focused most of her energy in her eyes, she could see much, much deeper. Every person had a tapestry between their fingers.

_Even me._ Kaede felt a smile appear on her face. _Even me, who used to have no threads whatsoever._ They were mostly faded strings - acquaintances of hers, or almost acquaintances. The only one that shone noticeably was the one that connected her to _him. _Hisoka. Kaede's smile faded. She'd never gone back to the Celestial Tower, even though she had planned to. What for? She didn't know. All she knew was that her destiny didn't belong there.

_So why couldn't she forget him?_ It bothered Kaede, because no matter how hard she tried, the insane magician would always remain at the back of her head, his unnaturally wide smile never fading, the swirling bloodlust that always erupted from his body sending chills down her spine whenver she remembered. His manic laughter haunted her when she slept. She was terrified of him, and yet somehow she desperately wanted to see him again. He had, after all, saved her somehow.

The strings flared into existence again, and a frown appeared on Kaede's face as she looked at her hands. _There they are again. _The few strings on her hands, except for the one between Hisoka and her, were all covered by layers and layers of colorless threads, like a protective web of spider silk that either trapped them down or kept something else out. They weren't white, or gray, or black. They were just...colorless. Transparent, but still clearly there.

Kaede focused harder on her eyes, trying unsuccessfully once more to see past the colorless threads. It worried her more than she liked to admit, because no matter how hard she looked, she could never see where the threads of silk came from.

She wasn't stupid. She had done her research; she'd poked around the Celestial Tower, found out more about Hisoka, and his terrible reputation. He had entered the Celestial Tower earlier that year, and in a shocking display of brutality and strength, shot straight to the high 100 floors in less than a year. No one who fought him lived, unless he simply didn't show up to the match.

Arrogant, indeed. But so strong.

.

.

"Ms. Rinna, please come this way."

The woman in the dress slowed down, turning with a looking to her left and into a alleyway at her side, confused. A tall figure in the alleyway nodded, motioning her forward. The person's face was hidden in shadows, but he gave off the air of someone important. The lady hesitated - did she really dare ignore this person?

Why was she being called over so many times today? The lady sighed, and approached the figure anyway. "Do I know you?" She asked.

"...no, I'm afraid you don't," the hood was thrown back, and the person stepped into the light, extending a hand for the lady to take, "_but you'll know soon._"

.

.

_It was getting colder. _Kaede noted, gripping her worn-out cloak and wrapping it tighter around herself. She'd have to get a new cloak; surely she could afford that much. Kaede exhaled noisily, puffing out her cheeks as she watched the people pass by as usual. Business was always slower when it got colder - what month was it now, September? She wasn't quite sure, but September sounded about right. Her cold green eyes drifted from side to side, trying to discern the richer folk and potential customers from the normal crowd.

Tired, she began to arrange the money she had collected through the day by her side. There was the bundle of money that the lady in the red dress had given her just now, the few scatterings of coins that had been tossed carelessly in her direction by various people, and then a few more pouches from her other customers. From the lengthening shadows that were beginning to spread across the street, evening was arriving.

A shadow appeared abruptly, blocking the light of the receding sun.

"Miss?"

_Oh, another customer. _Kaede looked up, a prepared smile already on her face. A tall, big, well-dressed man stood in front of her, standing impeccably straight. He tipped his hat, and as he did so Kaede saw his eyes.

Her smile slid off her face.

"_You._" She said.

The butler nodded pleasantly, but before he could open his mouth to say something else, Kaede stood up hastily, gathering up all of her money as she did so.

"What are you doing?" the butler asked, a small amused frown appearing on his face, "Unless...are you trying, perhaps, to get away?"

"...I thought," Kaede muttered icily, staring pointedly at her own working hands and refusing to look at the butler, "that we had settled something like this a while ago?"

"Settled? Impossible, milady. You never gave your answer-"

The butler clapped his hands sharply in front of his face, barely catching the pair of scissors Kaede had hurled at him. His words seemed to trail off in his throat, his eyes drifting from the scissors back to Kaede.

"...You!" her hands were gripping so hard on the blanket that her arms were shaking, "what are you doing? Why are you here? What more are you trying to do?"

"Is there something else that is preventing you from returning home, miss? Both your mother and your father have already made it clear they want you to return. Particularly your father."

"What," her voice was flat, "so they want me back now? Now, of all times? Why now?"

"Perhaps," the butler suggested amiably, "you should ask them yourself?"

"I don't want to go back," Kaede turned to face him fully, her green eyes stony.

The butler only smiled, and bowed once more. "Then you should tell them personally, or they won't give up."

.

_Cold hands wrapped around her face, soft and smooth. Kaede clenched her hands into fists, unable to control the shiver that ran up her spine. The hands slowly moved down her cheek, and then to her chin. Kaede's eyelashes fluttered as her head was tilted upwards._

_"Keep your eyes closed, shhh." A voice, sounding vague and distant even though it was right next to her made her tense up again._

_"Relax." Obediently, Kaede let her raised shoulders fall and her fluttering eyelashes remain closed. Kaede briefly wondered why she felt the compelling urge to listen to this person in first place. But no... this person was important. Yes, that was it...important. This person was someone she absolutely could not refuse._

.

"Kaede!" The person sitting in the passenger seat turned to face her, smiling widely. "Finally, you've been found. How are you feeling?"

Kaede blinked. The lady in the front seat was strikingly pretty, with ebony black hair and flawless, pale white skin. Her lips were red and plump, her eyelashes long and curled, and she was wearing a fancy gown covered with a small fur cape. Sparkling diamonds hung in small lines from her ears, and a similar one sat on her chest. As Kaede glanced at the lady's hands, she noted the many jeweled rings the woman was wearing. And she was smiling.

"My name is Tabitha," the lady said. "I don't think we've met. I'm your father's wife."

.

_The cold hands slowly drifted to her neck. Kaede shuddered, her hands clenching into fists again.  
><em>

_Light laughter. "Didn't I tell you to relax? It's okay. Give me your hands."_

_Once more, Kaede loosened her grip, and lifted her hands reluctantly. The cold fingers touching her neck disappeared, only to be placed on her raised hands. Kaede let her arms go limp and felt the grip on her hands tighten._

_.  
><em>

"No." Kaede replied hesitantly, "I've seen you before."

The smile on Tabitha's face flickered, "Really? Where?"

"In a newspaper," was Kaede's automatic answer, "when they announced you were going to be his wife."

"Oh," Tabitha sighed. "Yes, I suppose that would be obvious. When you ran away, and completely disappeared...well, with his former wife gone, and then losing his only daughter..."

"...he turned to you as a replacement?"

Tabitha's smile disappeared, and she looked up to meet Kaede's hard, unflinching eyes. After a tense moment, her smile returned sheepishly, "Well, it would seem like that, I guess. But-"

"You're the reason why I don't want to come back," Kaede interrupted flatly, her gaze turning to the side, "I wanted you to know that. My feelings are never going to change."

There was another brief silence as Tabitha's smile faded slightly. "...is that so?" she asked quietly, "then, I suppose I'll have to tell you something too. My feelings...are also never going to change."

Kaede's eyes darted upwards to meet Tabitha's calm blue gaze. The lady smiled as she turned back to face the front window.

"Because," Tabitha told her, her expression serious, "I really love that man."

.

"We are here."

"Are you ready?" Tabitha asked, slipping out of her seat. "He's really been looking forward to seeing you, you know."

"Who does he want to see me now?" Kaede asked flatly. Her fingers lingered at her seatbelt. "He hasn't contacted me for ten years."

"Now, then, you can't say that," Tabitha shrugged. As the butler pulled open the door, she turned and smiled at Kaede. "After all, you've also been avoiding him for ten years. So, why now? Why do you stop resisting now?"

With a graceful adjustment of her fur cape, she stepped out of the car, motioning for Kaede to follow. "I think it's about time you both talked to each other, anyway."

_._


	7. Chapter 7

As she stepped into the building, Kaede swallowed, her mouth dry. Wiping her palms on her already grimy cloak, she steeled her resolve. She was doing this for a reason. She had to remember that.

The idea had occurred to her on the car trip to the building. She had almost forgotten who she was going to meet: Mizuo Hanegawa, CEO of a major hotel business, and a huge influence in the industry world. A powerful man; her father.

Also the one responsible for killing the twins and Lucy. Her heart twisted; her expression slid away like fine sand, turning into a hard, cold, marbled face.

It was enough, she decided, to make her hate him. And that was good. It was going to make things much easier.

.

As she stepped into the building, she was aware of Tabitha sliding away from her side, motioning gently in which direction she should go before turning back to the car. So she would have to meet her father alone.

Curious, Kaede decided, that at this point she was not as agitated as she thought she would be. Before, when she had met any sign of her father or his company, she had retaliated with the panicked strength of a wounded animal, running away without another thought, hiding, cowering. But now, forced to face the one person she thought she'd never see again, she felt calm.

Which was odd. Why hadn't she done this earlier?

Her fingers wrapped around the handle of the door, but she hesitated. This was, after all, what she had spent the majority of her life trying to avoid. The moment she opened the door...well, what was going to happen? She didn't know.

For the first time in her life, she wished she could truly see the future, not make mere guesses based off of circumstances. Maybe then she would have been able to prepare herself better. Maybe then she would have known what to do. Maybe then things would have turned out different; she wouldn't have had to spend half of her life running away from nothing and towards nowhere; maybe then-

-they wouldn't have died...

Kaede twisted the handle sharply and flung open the door.

"Hello, father," she said, not bothering to bow. She strode in, latching the door shut behind her with a resounding clack. "It's been a while, hasn't it? "

.

The small office was dimly lit by a single lamp in the corner of a tall, sleek, wooden desk. Plush chairs were arranged beside the door; a small bookcase stood on the edge of the room. In the muted light, it was hard to discern Kaede's expression.

"Would you like some tea?" It wasn't much of a question; the cup of tea had already been placed down in front of her. Kaede took it, feeling the warmth seep into her hands. It was a pretty teacup, probably very expensive, with floral designs of delicate cherry blossoms and curling leaves painted with great care on its porcelain surface. She stared into the brownish water inside. The faint traces of her reflection stared back. Kaede flinched slightly, and twisted the cup in her hands, distorting the image.

"So," she said, finally. The steam from the cup of tea tickled her cheek. "How have you been?"

"I've been doing well," her father replied. "Tabitha's been taking care of me."

She didn't react to that. To the rest of the world, this simply sounded like a proper conversation, albeit a little disjointed. Kaede didn't have to hold back any urge to run away, or to scream. Instead, she just felt stifled by the awkward atmosphere, like she was meeting a stranger and couldn't really figure them out.

Or maybe it was just that all of her feelings had flown away and left her an empty shell. None of the feelings that should have swept through her at the sight of him – square-shouldered, a little shorter than she remembered him, with a blunt, honest face, dressed in warm clothing and a scarf wrapped around his neck despite being indoors. Even when they greeted each other, him with a deep bow and her with a stiff nod, she didn't feel anything other than awkwardness.

He seemed to read an awkward atmosphere, though, and his tone changed to be slightly more congenial. "Would you like coffee instead? That's what youngsters seem to prefer nowadays." He reached for her cup, which was still held tightly in her hands. In an instant, Kaede's earlier apathy sparked into a glare of fury.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm sorry," to her surprise, Mizuo Hanegawa apologized, instantly backing off. "I don't want to push things into a direction you don't want to go in."

He was too damn polite. For some reason, Kaede was relieved by this. It was so much easier to talk to him this way, with no emotions attached; formal, calculating. Distant. Her flare of panic smoothed over into a glacial calmness.

Perhaps that was a good thing, then, because it would be so much easier to kill him.

"No, no," the fingers around the teacup loosened. "It's okay. I think this conversation was bound to happen, anyway. Why don't you start first?" Her voice was beginning to waver despite herself, and Kaede covered it up with a deeper, more menacing tone. Now was not the time to let her petty feelings get in the way. She had to do this.

Her father's gaze was an unreadable shade of green. Like her own eyes, she thought, and then cursed herself for the thought.

"To this day, I still don't quite understand what happened," her father finally began. "When your mother died, I was distraught. I didn't know what to do."

"I know," her voice was bitter. She knew that all too well. So maybe she had been selfish, thinking that perhaps she would be able to replace the hole in her father's heart. Maybe she had thought things would stay the same, even when they so obviously would not be. Maybe.

But there were too many maybes, and she still couldn't forgive him. She wouldn't. Ever.

"I thought I would be able to recover. I thought it would be okay with just the two of us. I could take care of the business by myself. And then, all of a sudden, you disappeared too. Gone without a trace. I thought you were dead. That would be when I found the note - the note that said you had been kidnapped, and I would never see you again."

Her fingers tightened against the teacup.

What? What did Mizuo Hanegawa just say?

"A note...?" Kaede had become unnaturally still, unable to breath. Her calmness shattered like a wall of glass, and she felt her panic overwhelm her. Even more uncertainties. Even more maybes. Her certainty threatened to slide away. The floor lurched. "What? Kidnapped?"

_She had left no note._

So that meant...that meant...

"You mean...you thought-"

The door was abruptly flung open. Kaede's sentence died in her throat, and she turned. Tabitha stood in the doorway, a graceful smile adorning her face. Her hair had been covered with a hat, and there was a flush across her cheeks, as if she was excited about something. Or nervous. Kaede couldn't tell.

"Tabitha," her father stood at once. After a moment of hesitation, Kaede stood too, her chair pushed halfway back. For some reason she felt her calm return again. This woman's very existence invalidated anything CEO Mizuo Hanegawa could say to Kaede. So there had been a conspiracy to separate them. So there had been someone else involved in the end of Kaede's childhood life. Well that was the past now, and Tabitha's presence made Kaede realize that in the end, it was too late for her father to change his fate. Nothing that happened between father and daughter mattered now.

"Oh..." Tabitha seemed to realize that she had interrupted something. "I'm sorry...should I just wait outside?"

"No," Kaede said immediately, "it's fine. We're finished talking." Mizuo Hanegawa shot her a startled glance, but she ignored it. There would be no more talking, only actions.

Her father turned to Tabitha, and instantly a warm smile filled his honest face. His eyes even went a little glassy, which was sick and amusing at the same time. He seemed to have completely forgotten the conversation with Kaede earlier. "Have a seat, my dear." He indicated the chair next to him.

"No, it's fine." Tabitha replied, and then sat down in a chair next to Kaede's. "I actually have a lot I want to speak to Kaede about."

The look on Tabitha's face was of pure enthusiasm, but when Kaede saw it, a bad feeling simmered beneath her skin. Everything was perfect about Tabitha - her carefully applied make-up, her smooth, glossy hair, her straight and poised posture...and the way she expressed her emotions. The perfectness of it made Kaede uneasy. Now that she thought about it, who was this woman, pushing her way into her father's life?

.

_"Because I...really love that man."_

A worm of doubt twisted in Kaede's stomach. Perhaps she had just stopped believing in love, but that just sounded too fake, coming from a beautiful lady, in regards to a middle-aged, widowed, stout and square-jawed man with no charm.

_But then if that's the case….what in the world could Tabitha want?_

.

"I didn't even know this about Kaede," she exclaimed, looking back and forth at them, a charming smile on her face. "Honey, have you heard of Kaede's most interesting power? All over the downtown area where she was found, they've been talking about her fortune-telling abilities."

Her heart plummeted to her stomach. Kaede hadn't expected her street life to be brought up so suddenly, and by Tabitha of all people. Another part of her brain raced. How did Tabitha know? Perhaps she had listened in on conversations - it wouldn't have been hard. If she knew about that, then shouldn't she know about the twins and Lucy as well? Would she be able to guess Kaede's true intentions?

"...Fortune telling?" Her father was looking interested. Kaede stiffened and started to listen desperately for signs of betrayal. Her plan wouldn't work if he suspected, if they suspected...

"No," Kaede cut in quickly, "it's not like that. I can't really predict the future." She had to stop this somehow. She hadn't planned on letting her father in on how she could see strings. How had her plans unraveled so fast?

Tabitha's next words ruined everything. "But you do have a certain power, yes?" Tabitha pressed on, still smiling. "I've heard about it. Something about seeing threads - is that true?"

Kaede narrowed her eyes. "How do you know that?" Someone had evidently done their share of investigating. Did this woman know everything?

"So you can?" her father asked, lacing his fingers together and leaning forwards. "It must be an ability that you learned on the streets. Do tell us more, Kaede."

Kaede swallowed, shifting uncomfortably backwards, scooting further into her chair. This wasn't what she had wanted. "...I can see strings," she finally admitted, unable to bear the scrutinizing stares of Tabitha and her father. She had to regain their trust, somehow, worm her way into their confidences, bring her father down from the inside. "Strings of Fate."

"Fate?" Her father asked, eyebrows raising. "Such as how you die?"

"No!" Kaede said quickly, and then corrected herself, smoothing over her sense of panic with the cold professionalism she had used on so many customers in the backstreets of York Shin. "Well, yes, but that's not all. I can see the strings that dictate your life. Your friendships, your competitors, your luck, your love..." Kaede decided to add a little dark flair, to show off a little to the people who thought they knew her, but really didn't. "It has limitations though, Certain conditions have to be met. It's a difficult art, fortune telling."

"How interesting!" Her father exclaimed. "And yet, what a simple concept!"

It's not simple at all, Kaede thought. For one, she had never been able to foretell the timing, which was all that people were really interested in. All she knew, for example, was how people would die. If the strings were fading and unraveling, they'd be close to death, or dying of some sickness, or old age. If their strings were strong and visible, but there was a black one wrapped around another string, that meant that someone was going to murder them. And if there was a single, snipped black thread on their hand, it meant that they had murdered someone else.

She didn't see any black strings on her father's hands. Not yet, anyway.

"It could be useful, couldn't it?" Tabitha asked eagerly. "Think of how much influence you could gain, especially in the corporate world!"

This took Kaede by surprise. She had been thinking along the same lines, and to hear them repeated aloud by Tabitha unsettled her. "What do you mean?" she asked.

This seemed to strike a chord in Mizuo Hanegawa, and he straightened, as if he had remembered something. "Kaede..." He seemed to be searching for the right words to say. "I know we've only just been reunited. But the truth is, I need your help. I will offer anything in return, anything you desire. Your ability to see strings might just be able to save something that's very important to me – my company."

Kaede couldn't believe it. They had decided to trust her after all! And now they were offering her a business deal. She should have been elated, but instead she felt as if her stomach had just been crushed by a heavy rock.

So in the end, they had an ulterior motive from the beginning. She didn't know if she was expecting it or not, but the fact that it had surprised her at all made her angry. Of course, she thought, why else would they suddenly start putting so much effort into finding me? They had been one step ahead of her, planned on using her from the very beginning.

She was so..._disappointed._

"What kind of proposition?" Her tone had become more wary and guarded.

"You see," Tabitha sighed, "despite how well our company is doing, it's not doing well enough."

"We have a rival company that's been growing steadily bigger," her father explained. "In actuality, they're doing much, much better than us."

"That's where we want you come in," Tabitha smiled, letting her ebony black hair fall out in long waves as she removed and repositioned her hat. "We want you to appear, all dressed up and mysterious, gain their trust, and to put it bluntly, ruin them from the inside."

Silence stretched inside the small office. Kaede's mind began to hurt due to the speed of her thoughts.

"Ruin them from the inside? That's a preposterous idea." Kaede spoke slowly, almost a little lazily, trying not to betray the thought spinning in her mind. "Sabotage? Well, I can't say that it's unheard of, but if it were to be discovered, it would cause a huge scandal... Are you willing to face the consequences?"

Tabitha glanced furtively between Kaede and her father. Her father swallowed and looked at a spot on the wall slightly to the left of Kaede.

Slowly looking between the two faces of the adults, she understood something. "You're desperate for the company, aren't you? You've tried everything you can, but it hasn't been working. So you've decided to grasp at a handful of bees, hoping to actually catch one that won't sting you. And you did." She had the full picture now, understood her situation. This was going to be easier than she thought, as long as she could get rid of that sick feeling in her stomach that screamed with disappointment in her father. "You found _me_."

"I'm sorry, Kaede," Mizuo Hanegawa sighed, perhaps picking up on the raging feelings beneath her cool expression, or perhaps apologizing out of proper conduct. "I'm truly sorry. But this plan is going to work. We've thought it all through already. So, please?" He attempted to smile, but it was too forced. Perhaps he was also coming to realize what a horrible father he was being.

"If I accept your…_proposition_... let's make this clear. You promised me anything I wanted, isn't that right?"

Mizuo Hanegawa nodded vigorously. "I apologize for asking this of you, so soon after we were reunited after all…"

"No," Kaede was shaking her head, her lips curving into a smile. "No, it's fine." Nothing that happened between father and daughter mattered now. "This proposition...I'll go along with it. On one condition."

Tabitha and the CEO looked at each other. "Yes!" Mizuo Hanegawa said eagerly, nodding. "Of course, anything. Anything you want."

Kaede heard her voice come out like velvet covering steel. She was not afraid anymore.

"Do you remember, about two months ago, there were three children who were murdered? A few years younger than me. All on the same night. By one person."

Tabitha's smile disappeared completely, while her father's softened in confusion. Kaede's smile was predatory as she leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with malice. "I want you to give me a hundred-thousand jennis. And then...I want the name of the assassin you hired to kill them."

* * *

><p><strong>The plot, evidently, will go faster from now on. I intend for this story to be short; I feel like I won't be able to stretch it out for more than 10 or so chapters. So I offer my apologies, and the promise of more Hisoka appearances. I know, I miss him too.<strong>

**Anyways, review! I really like it when people tell me what they think of my story. Constructive criticism is always appreciated; flames, not so much. I don't think I've gotten any flames, though o.o is that a good thing?**

**Bleh. I'm so sorry for my awful updating speed. I'm sincerely trying my best (you won't believe how much I nagged my sister to beta-read this, goodness) to give you guys something good each time I upload.**

**Thank you!**

**- Colorii**


	8. Chapter 8

**_Hey guys. Come on, don't be so antagonistic towards Tabitha; plenty of stepmoms are quite nice. Kaede just doesn't like Tabitha._**

**_Soo...I'm dumb._**

**_The Celestial Tower is nowhere near Yorkshin City T.T_**

**_In fact, there seems to be no city around the Heavens Arena, or there is no name for it because Togashi-sama did not provide one. Dear god. Therefore, I will be substituting any mention of 'Yorknew City' with some mundane description like 'the city around the Heaven's Arena...'_**

**_forgive me for this foolish slip in research._**

* * *

><p>Zoldyck.<p>

Kaede found that the name rolled around in her head like a marble, never quite going out of sight. In the sleepy hush of the morning hours, the room seemed cold and empty, and the quiet hum of the computers were near inaudible. She had stayed up all night researching, and now she scrolled through the last of what had popped up online when she typed the name into the search bar. There had been a lot to read. What she found out did not surprise her.

The Zoldyck family was a family of hired assassins known for their high efficiency when it came to eliminating targets. Despite their expensive charges, their credentials proved that they were more than capable of doing their job. Additionally, their home was located at Kukuroo Mountain, an immensely tall dormant volcano surrounded by impenetrable stone walls, and there were many tours that showcased it. It was on the other side of the country. Supposedly, a single photo of any of the members could be sold for millions.

But other than that, as she finished with the final link, there was nothing.

Kaede hissed in frustration, a deep frown appearing on her face. She didn't want to know about the Zoldyck family. She wanted to know, very specifically, about the one that killed Lucy and the twins. But there was practically nothing on the individual members of the Zoldyck family.

A terrible, terrible idea formed in her head, an idea that she hadn't dared to think about before. Evidently, she would have to get the information from someone who actually knew the Zoldyck family, or was close enough to the family of assassins that he or she could identify the one member of the family that used pins as a murdering weapon.

And unfortunately, the only person she could think of that could possibly have such a connection was Hisoka.

"Kaede, dear?" a knock on the door startled Kaede out of her thoughts. Clicking rapidly, she deleted her history on the computer and shut it down.

"Kaede?" Tabitha asked again, her voice slightly muffled by the wooden door. The door creaked open and Tabitha's smiling face appeared through the crack. "Breakfast will be served soon, dear. Would you come join us?"

Kaede stood up from her chair, nodding with a plastered on smile. Her eyes flickered only briefly towards the computer, satisfied that she had left no trace of her actions.

As she left the room, heading towards the dining hall, a very disturbing thought came to her:

_since when had she become so fixated on revenge?_

But then she remembered how she had been before, cowardly running away without putting a fight, snapping back at whoever tried to stop her, and decided that this obsessive feeling of hate that seemed to coil and twist inside her stomach was an infinitely better feeling.

.

The plan her father had come up with was deceptively simple. The rival business was known throughout the underground as getting their way through bribery, blackmail, or other forms of underhanded sabotage. However, the CEO of the company was exceedingly superstitious, so Kaede's fortune-telling skills would be instrumental in influencing his future decisions. That is, if she were to somehow win his trust. Actually, Kaede didn't exactly need all that trust, just to get his guard down. The main objective was for her to get close enough to get a trace of the underhanded exchanges that the company often dealt in. Once she had acquired incriminating evidence, her job would be done. A single newspaper article would be enough to destroy a major portion of the company.

Kaede listened without comment as the plan was laid out before her. As she had already given her consent, it was obvious that her father and Tabitha fully expected her cooperation. _No, _she thought, mouth uncomfortably dry, _that's not true. They _need_ my cooperation. _They needed it, because Kaede was their trump card: the only person they could trust with such a pivotal task and yet not be suspected. She had been away for so long that there would be little connection between her and her father, but as Mizuo Hanegawa's daughter she was expected to cooperate fully because she was family and family was always supposed to stick together.

There was something just so disgusting about the whole thing.

"Kaede," Tabitha said happily after they had finished explaining the plan to her, "I just want to thank you. I know this must be a very difficult change to get accustomed to, but I'm glad you're able to handle it so maturely."

"This is an important job," her father told her. He looked slightly relieved. "I believe that you can do it, Kaede."

"If you need any kind of help," Tabitha chirped in, "don't be afraid to ask. If you want, we can refresh your memories about etiquette so you'll feel more comfortable."

"No, it's fine," Kaede said, feeling slightly overwhelmed at the amount of information she was struggling to process. Despite her ten-year absence, she retained much of the things she had learned in her childhood, because she often employed said manners to convince some customers of the richer class to pay more.

"In all honesty, I didn't think the plan would be this simple," she admitted. "All I have to do is inform you when and where an illegal exchange will take place, right?"

Her father nodded vigorously. "We'll have other people steal the necessary evidence to ruin their reputation. The moment you have the information, make sure to tell us immediately."

"Understood." Kaede stood up from the table, her tone light. "And then you'll give me the money, as agreed?"

There was a brief moment of hesitation, as if her father was not expecting the question. But then his face smoothed over, and he nodded. "Of course," her father said.

As Kaede walked away, Tabitha called after her. "Kaede!"

She paused, one foot placed on the first step of the stairs, her hand on the smooth wooden banister.

"September 29th. That is when you meet the CEO of the business. Do what you want before then, but make sure to be here at least two days before," Tabitha's voice was gentle, but very firm. "Understood?"

Kaede nodded once, curtly, and continued towards her room.

.

Kaede carefully shut the door to her room behind her. After the exhausting meeting, she had a lot of things to think about.

The room that had been given to her was a tall, spacious room with carefully applied blue paint and a soft, expensive carpeted floor. A large bed with nightstands on either side occupied the farthest wall, and a desk and a lamp sat along the adjacent wall next to a large bookshelf. A full-length mirror and a wooden cabinet stood next to the door that lead to the bathroom. Kaede walked toward the mirror, letting out a huge exhale as she did so.

She turned slowly around, scrutinizing herself in the tall, wide mirror next to the wooden cabinet that kept her clothes. With proper nourishment, her body no longer had that thin, sickly look to it. She was still rather bony, sure, but she was beginning to fill out slightly. Frequent showers had left her skin much cleaner than before. In addition, her father had paid for a new set of clothes, shoes, and anything else she could think of. A bitter smile appeared on her face. Being the daughter of a rich business tycoon sure had its benefits.

_Why don't I just give up on my revenge and live comfortably like this forever?_

Kaede felt like her life had suddenly been thrown into fast-forward. So many things were happening at once, she often wondered how she managed to keep her head on properly.

It had started with the web of thin, colorless threads that were obscuring the rest of the strings on her hands. They were definitely hiding something, she knew, because while images usually would appear when she touched a thread on her hand, the colorless strings brought nothing to her mind but a white barrier. It was disconcerting to say the least, but Kaede was beginning to think that it may have simply been a side effect of her power.

Also, there was her personal vendetta. She wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do, after learning the name of the family that had killed Lucy and the twins. Kaede knew that the Zoldyck family was not to blame, because they were only hired to do their job. But she wanted closure somehow, some sort of end to this uncomfortable feeling in her gut.

Then, of course, there was the curious story of her disappearance. This was, by far, the biggest mystery. Kaede had chosen not to pursue it as of yet, but she could not shake off the feeling that her story was wrong, despite clearly remembering every moment of her escape from home. Her father's story matched up with hers quite well with the exception of a note that he claimed to have received which she never remembered writing. Given her fuzzy memories of the rest of her childhood, it could easily have been something she forgot. It would have been unrealistic to think that she remembered every little detail despite how well she thought she remembered.

It infuriated Kaede. She remembered everything so clearly. There was no proof that anything was amiss. And yet...

It was not a comforting thing, doubting her own past.

.

_.flashback._

_._

_Her eyes snapped open to be met by blinding light. Kaede was in the alleyways of the city, and for a moment she expected to see Aoi and Midori bouncing around looking for news, or Lucy scrounging in a nearby trash can for food._

_Then she remembered that they were dead. __She paused, her gaze drifting to the other side of the wall...empty. Splinters of scorched black wood remained piled in a small heap, but there was nothing else._

_So it was over and they were burned._

_Kaede wasn't one to make promises, especially because she knew how easy it was to break them. But the thought flew to her head anyway, filling her with an unidentifiable emotion as she stared at cremated ashes of the people she once knew. Hand clenched tightly around the pins that she had extracted from their necks, she unconsciously told herself that the next time, she wouldn't run._

_The next day she had resumed her life as a fortune-teller, forcing herself to see the Strings clearer each time she read someone's fate for them. The feeling of using her power consumed her entire being, and for a blissful two months she did nothing but urge her skill to grow. It did not take long for her to realize the connection between meditating and her ability to focus, and one day she had noted with glee that it took much less time for the Strings to appear._

_Sometimes she thought of Hisoka. She was quite sure that he had forgotten her by then, even if he was not as easily forgotten to her. After all, he was the kind of person that never dwelt in the past long enough to remember things he deemed unimportant. So she pushed any thoughts of her brief stint at the Celestial Tower and the short conversations she had had with him away, deciding to focus on the one thing she could: improving her ability._

_She was certain that this sort of uneasy peace wouldn't last forever. It was only a matter of time before her father would make a move and try to bring her back. _

_For some reason, Kaede was secretly relieved, that her life was slowly unwinding, her paused life beginning to play again. _

_This time she wouldn't run._

.

Kaede stood up and locked the door. There was little chance that anyone would intrude on her, but she didn't dare take any chances that someone might disturb her when she was meditating.

This was something she did every day, a ritual that somehow made herself control her emotions better. She sat down once more in front of the mirror and closed her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, she let her Nen flare out around her. The familiar heat spread throughout her, and she relaxed, deciding she could open her eyes.

Infusing her Nen into her eyes - Gyo, as she would learn later - allowed the strings to appear almost instantaneously. It had improved to the degree that she could practically see the person on the other end of the string, their personalities, their life span, the important events in their life. Faint images would enter her mind the moment she touched a string, like looking through a blurry telescope. Every string was different, no matter their connection to the one whose strings she was reading. For some reason she felt a sick satisfaction whenever she looked so deep into someone's past like that, as if she was digging out the most carefully protected secrets that they had buried long ago. Sometimes she wondered if this twisted fascination with other people's lives could ever progress into something worse. The thought bothered her deeply. After all, if she had access to someones past, it wouldn't be far-fetched to one day be able to affect someone's future...

Over the two months prior to being found by Tabitha, her stamina had progressed to the point where she no longer felt crushing fatigue even after a full day of constantly seeing the Strings. Additionally, Kaede had noticed that Strings weren't the only thing she could see. Whenever she looked at her own hands to observe any changes in the threads, she noticed that her hands and the rest of her body were glowing, as if shrouded in some form of light mist. Because it had always been like that, right from the beginning, she had disregarded it entirely and assumed it was nothing special. But now she was thinking that perhaps it played a bigger role regarding this Nen.

She had reached a huge wall that she found no way to get through. She understood that there was something called Nen, and that somehow her ability to see strings was linked to it. She also knew that Nen was not something that any normal person could use without constant training. For that reason, she was an anomaly. However, she failed to fully understand how the concept of Nen worked. So far, the only way she could think of to improve her power was to consistently use it.

Slowly, she leaned over to the wooden cabinet next to the mirror and pulled open a small drawer on the side. There, she pulled out a bundle of cloth and carefully unwrapped it. There was a clink of metal meeting metal as she pulled out her scissors, slightly damaged but otherwise unhurt. Kaede smiled to herself as her fingers slid naturally through the rings of the scissors and snapped the blades sharply together. For some reason, the cold, grating sound of steel on steel comforted her. Her father had replaced her old clothes with new ones, and had given her a bed, supplied her with food, and anything else she could have asked for. The scissors, however, were the one thing she did not allow her father to replace. **  
><strong>

The next item she pulled out was a slightly bent poker card: the Queen of Spades. Many, many times she had considered throwing it away, simply because of how useless it was. Even though it had cut through stone when Hisoka had thrown it at her, it had turned into nothing but a regular poker card. Kaede, however, had never quite been able to toss it into the trash.

_Next time I see him,_ she decided, _I'll return it. Absolutely._

Then her eyes flickered over to the last two items in the bundle, and her smile disappeared.

She remembered how terrified she was of touching a corpse, how her fingers fumbled against their bloodless necks, grasping at the pin embedded in their throats. Two black pins glinted darkly from the folds of the cloth bundle, a silent accusation that she could not avoid. This was why she was determined to understand Nen.

Because when she had looked at the pins that had killed Lucy and the twins with her Nen-infused eyes, as if she was trying to see the Strings - the pins were glowing, too. They were glowing just like her hands were.

.

Tabitha had given her permission to do as she wished before the end of the month came. Kaede knew that they were expecting her to stay put, to stay where she was and be happy with her new, luxurious life, but she had already decided. Other people's opinions didn't particularly matter. But one thing was certain, whether she liked it or not. She needed to learn Nen and become stronger.

For that, she would be going back to the Heavens Arena.

* * *

><p><strong><em>I shall be editing this fic. Edits will be mainly minor as I do not wish to spend copious amounts of time on significantly changing a chapter. As it goes, feel free to ignore the edits and continue reading.<em>**

**_Until next time._**

**_- ColorlessButterfly_**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey I'm back! I want to apologize for my dreadful updating speed - right now I'm coming out with a new chapter every three months, which is honestly terrible. I'm trying, guys! I just take so much time editing and thinking about this story and it all ends up taking a lot of time.**

**Anyways, I want all of you to do a favor for me. Read through the entire story again, please? I've done quite a bit of little edits (with the exception of Chapter Three - more about that later) which I think improve the story quite a bit. Because I'm still rather young as an author, there's a lot I can improve on and as I mature there's certain aspects about my story I want to change for what I think will be better.**

**Thank you so much, as always! Enjoy.**

* * *

><p>Kaede slowed to a standstill as she came in front of the tall, menacing silhouette of the Celestial Tower. Shading her eyes with one hand, she glanced upwards, eyes darting hawk-like from crooked ledge to twisted spire.<p>

She was back.

It had been two and a half months since she had thrown away her successes and gone off to avenge Lucy, Aoi, and Midori. She had been a mere street urchin back then, with no history and no memory of fighting. Strange, to think of those days back in the streets of York Shin. She could barely remember what kind of life she lived back then. Scrounging on the streets, too tired from starvation to even think, she had almost forgotten the faces of her parents by the time a pair of dangerous eyes and hands covered in black intruded on her life.

Something had been awakened in her blood upon returning back home. Something she had lost, just like the memories of her father. Kaede frowned, but pushed those thoughts away. She would have to investigate that later. But only later, after she found the Zoldyck. After she found Hisoka.

_._

_"Are you sure?" her father sounded extremely worried, but Kaede couldn't be sure if his concern was genuine. "The Heaven's Arena is not something to be taken lightly. People come from all over just to fight in that tower - some of those people are bound to be incredibly strong. And Kaede, you are not a fighter."_

_Kaede watched him impassively as they sat on opposite sides of the table. Any discussions between her father and her usually took place across a table, with cups of tea in front of them, surrounded by guards. An ornate chandelier hung overhead, with dagger-like spears of jeweled crystals hanging dangerously above. Only her father would enjoy a display like that._

_Not a fighter?_

_Of course, her ability was not a fighting ability – it was less than useless in a duel. But there was something more to her ability, something more about Nen and Hisoka had seen it. Perhaps the Celestial Tower was the key to unlocking that particular mystery._

_"Consider it a way to spend my month before the business deal," she said evenly. Her father seemed surprised by the lack of emotion in her answer. "Don't worry. I don't intend to stay any longer than necessary." She shifted her suitcase lightly. "Once I get to the 100th floor, I'll get my own room. I just want to see how many floors up I can go before the end of the month."_

_This was, of course, only half of the truth. Kaede decided not to mention Hisoka or her questions about the Zoldyck family to her father._

_Her father hesitated slightly, trying to choose his words carefully. "Don't be reckless, Kaede."_

_Reckless?_

_Kaede felt the prickle of goosebumps as they appeared on her arms, tiny lumps of raised flesh. She smiled._

_"My dear father," Kaede said softly, punctuating each of her words with triumphant finality, "I. Am. Not. Weak."_

.

She was...unusual.

Black hair, green eyes - a girl of Japanese descent, certainly, but with mixed blood as well. The lady at the ticket register paused briefly as she took in this unfamiliar face.

Most people who entered the Tower were normal, everyday fighters just looking for a thrill or some money. Fighting aside, most of the women who she saw in the Tower were either employees or women accompanying someone else to watch a match. It was very rare to have a woman fighter, the lady thought to herself, but not unheard of.

The girl walked over. She was wearing a loose-fitting, dark-colored jacket over a similarly colored shirt and pants, and the straps of a brown duffel bag hung from her hands, banging against her calves every time she took a step. Her hair was cropped short and uneven, messily layered but still decently clean and washed. Her thin build made it seem as if she was a teenager; the structure of her face showed that she was perhaps a few years older.

"Hello," the lady said politely. "How may I assist you?"

The girl's eyes were a brilliant green, but very cold. They could have been beautiful, the lady thought absentmindedly, but something in this girl's eyes made the otherwise stunning green difficult to look at.

Her name was Kaede. She had, apparently, already been here before, but according to Arena policy she would have to register again.

"Do you record everyone who comes and leaves the Tower?" the girl finally asked, tapping the pen lightly on the desk as she slid the completed form over.

"We do, but it's only to prevent mistakes in scheduling matches," the lady replied evenly, taking the registration form from the girl. "Of course, if one were to leave the tower after a match was scheduled, then there is no cancelling, and the other fighter will win by default."

"Are regular people allowed to access such information?"

The lady gestured to the computer next to her, a prickle of unease appearing in her stomach. "The information we log into the computer does not infringe on the laws about privacy, but it depends on what you're looking for. What do you need?"

"I am...looking for someone," Kaede said quietly, flashing the lady a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "Can you search for someone named..._Hisoka_?"

.

She counted herself lucky. Hisoka had left sometime after she had, disappearing from the Tower. However, he would definitely be back. He lived on the 200th floor, the lady at the register had said, and anyone on the 200th floor had to fight at least once every 3 months.

So he would definitely come back, and all Kaede had to do was wait for him to show up. In the meantime, she thought to herself, she might as well enter the arena once again.

Kaede cracked her neck from one side to the other, sighing as she did so. She didn't have a very menacing figure, but she was confident enough in her meager fighting skills that passing the preliminary round would not be difficult.

After all, she hadn't spent two months doing absolutely nothing.

And so three weeks passed.

.

.

.

_The building was stunningly white. Her feet slapped against the marbled floor as she ran, not knowing where she was going or why she had come here. All she knew was that she was terribly frightened, somehow, perhaps not by what was chasing her but what she would run into..._

Kaede's eyes snapped open.

She blinked several times in confusion before she remembered where she was and what she was doing. Groaning, she sat up slowly from the bed and tried to register her surroundings.

_That dream again..._

Kaede stretched, running a hand through her hair as a troubled expression flitted across her face. She was normally never worried about something as trivial as a bad dream, but this one had repeated itself over the past few weeks too many times for comfort. In this dream, she was always in a white hallway, barefoot. In this dream, she was always running, and she was always, always crushed by a feeling of complete terror.

Sometimes there was a voice, Kaede remembered, but to her immense frustration she could not remember anything distinctive about the voice that occasionally appeared in her dreams, and like all dreams, her memories of it were dull and unclear.

The date was September 24th. After three weeks, she had finally made it to the 100th floor of the Heaven's Arena. The business meeting was in three days.

As Kaede thought back on it, it hadn't been too difficult. Because she had already been in the Arena before, and had made it up to the 40th floor during her brief stay, there were only a few floors she had to pass before she got to the 100th. With a match nearly every day, she had gotten up to the 100th floor with little problem, considering that most of her opponents were unaccustomed to a girl attacking them using the dirtiest tricks possible.

Flopping back onto the bed, Kaede allowed herself a contented sigh. She raised a hand up into the air and clenched it into a fist, noting how her arms were beginning to develop into satisfyingly strong muscles. With constant meditation and exercise every day, she had shown rapid improvement.

But she still was missing something about Nen; something vital that she couldn't figure out. Nen was definitely more than just a shroud of aura around the body - this, Kaede had almost perfected with constant practice. There was more, she was sure, but she didn't know what it was.

She hopped out of bed, sighing deeply as she did so. She had no matches today, but there was little time to waste. It was coming close to the end of the month, and Hisoka had yet to appear.

Really.

This fixation she had with him was unhealthy. True, all the information brokers she could find knew nothing about the Zoldyck family besides the barest facts, but there wasn't any guarantee that Hisoka could provide her with any better answers. Even if there was a good chance that he knew, there was also no guarantee he'd tell her. So why did Kaede keep thinking about him?

Simple. _She wanted to see him again. _And whether this thought was subconscious or not, Kaede stayed and kept waiting.

.

The morning passed in a blur. After lunch, Kaede found herself slipping away from the main roads and sidewalks, and deeper into the alleyways, where the ground turned to cobbled stone and shadows lengthened. The shadows were soothing to her, and the dirty, grimy streets not as well worn as the main roads. This is where the homeless hid themselves during the day, where the hustle and bustle of the city was reduced to a mere lull. This was where Kaede felt at home.

As Kaede walked, she passed by a bar where several men where sitting on the stairs to the bar, their voices carrying far down the street in a mixture of laughing and roaring and hooting. Several bottles of beer littered the ground near where they sat, and the scent of illegal drugs hung heavily in the air.

Kaede stiffened when one man stumbled up to her, obviously drunk. She grimaced as he leaned forward, smiling to reveal crooked yellow teeth. He smelled of alcohol and cigarettes, and Kaede found herself recoiling slightly as he looked her up and down shamelessly.

"Hey," he slurred, a lopsided smile on his face, "you're pretty cute, huh? You want to hang out with me for a while? I know a reaaall good spot..."

"Out of my way," Kaede said tonelessly, her eyes narrowing. She'd had her experiences with drunk men before, but it had always been at night, where she could slip away under the cover of darkness and disappear into the alleyways. It was afternoon right now, when the sun was just beginning its descent ad true darkness was quite a few hours away.

The man did not seemed fazed by her reaction, and instead stepped forward, tilting dangerously to the side as he did so. "Awww, she's shy...but it's okay." He took another staggering step forward, a distinctive dazed look in his eyes. "I know your type..."

Almost subconsciously, her Nen flickered to life, and strings materialized into place all around her. Her eyes trained onto the man's hands, and Kaede's fingers drifted to her jacket's pocket, where her scissors lay easily within reach. She had nothing against alcohol, but drunk men were always a bother. Her eyes darted to his hands that hung limply at his sides, sallow and dirty.

Kaede was somewhat relieved that there was no string connecting them - he had no association with her whatsoever, and they would probably never meet again.

Then she frowned.

The man had a black string on his middle finger.

_Death_. Somehow this man was going to die, and from the way the string was pulled taut and stretched tight, she had the feeling that the man would not die a natural death. She glanced at the black thread, feeling a sense of sick curiosity. Here was a man about to die, possibly very soon. Hesitating only slightly, she touched the string, taking a deep breath as she did so.

Kaede reeled slightly as the image appeared in her head, more unfocused than she was accustomed to. She frowned, a prickle of unease causing the hairs on the back of her neck to raise. The string felt...familiar, somehow. Her eyes narrowed slightly. While she had touched other threads before, this was the first time she was touching a black one. What was unusual about this thread, however, was that it seemed as if the image was distorting, refusing to reveal itself.

"...are you ignoring me, you bitch?"

Kaede's head snapped upwards, and she instinctively stepped back. Somehow this drunk man had stumbled so close that she could see his red-rimmed eyes, the unhealthy pallor of his skin. He reeked of cigarette smoke and his mouth smelled fetid with the aftertaste of bitter alcohol. Kaede shrunk back slightly. The way he looked at her - as if she was nothing but meat - scared her somehow.

She tried to sidestep him, but he only shifted to match her movement and blocked her again.

The alleyway they were in was now completely deserted, the stairs that led to the bar now empty. Somehow in the short few minutes this man's drinking buddies had ditched.

"Now that I look at it...you're actually quite good-looking..."

Perhaps he was too drunk to react to Kaede's furious glare, but the man only leaned forward over her with a disgusting grin.

Kaede realized the danger she was in the moment he lunged. Reacting with the skills of an Arena fighter, she twisted to avoid his grasp and ducked under the man's outstretched arm, darting behind him.

But she had been too slow, too distracted by the black string and the unsettling image that came with it. A thick hand shot out and grabbed her bony wrist as she tried to run, squeezing tightly. Kaede let out an involuntary cry as he yanked her back with an iron grip, pulling her so fiercely that her shoulder burst into pain.

With a strength that could only come from someone who was drunk, he yanked her arm again so that her back slammed into the wall.

It had happened so quickly that Kaede could barely react, although now her blood was rushing furiously against her ears, the adrenaline shooting through her entire body because of the abrupt attack. He was now pinning her uncomfortably to the wall, the stones digging into her shoulder blades. Kaede twisted violently, struggling to escape his painful grip on her right arm even though her shoulder was throbbing.

"Get away from me!" she hissed, her knee jerking upwards to hit him in the groin. The man grunted in pain, so she repeated the movement twice for good measure, causing him to double over and release his hold on her arm.

With all the strength she could muster, she shoved him away, ignoring the way her shoulder screamed at the movement. Without stopping, Kaede pivoted on her right foot and swung her leg in a wide arc, slamming her foot into his side. The man stumbled, staggering into the wall blearily, hands scrabbling over the rough wall as he tried to keep balance.

Her breathing was shallow and angry. Her eyes burned furiously, her Nen flaring out of control. For the first time in a while, Kaede felt incredibly angry. Her senses sharpened, her awareness instantly reduced to every movement the man made and how to counteract it.

"You little bitch!" the man roared, lunging clumsily at her. Kaede easily ducked under his hands and darted in, turning to her side and jamming her elbow into his stomach as she did so.

The wave of pain that wracked Kaede's body sent her reeling backwards, clutching at her shoulder, her concentration shattering. After being yanked so violently, her shoulder had already been severely hurt and the absorbed shock from elbowing the man in the gut had been enough to send it spinning into agony.

It came as less of a thought and more of a feeling.

Kaede felt nothing but anger at this drug-addicted alcoholic, and her Nen reflected her anger by darkening and thickening dangerously.

Somewhere in her head, she thought, _I want to kill this man. _

The black string tightened like a noose around his neck.

For an instant, the man froze as Kaede's incredibly murderous Nen flowed over him, trapping him in place from sheer fear.

The next moment, he let out a gurgle of pain as a hand wrapped around his neck and he was lifted into the air. With a dull thud, the man was shoved roughly against the wall.

Her Nen disappeared within seconds. Kaede couldn't disguise her surprise, not at what she had done to the man but more about who the hand belonged to.

_Hisoka?_

As her vision cleared, Kaede realized that it was indeed Hisoka who was pinning the struggling man against the wall with a single hand, looking impassively at the man's desperate face. It was him - the clothes had changed, somewhat, but she would have recognized his distinctive red hair anywhere.

The next thing that flew to her mind were questions: _"When? Why? How?" How did Hisoka appear like that? Where did he come from? _She hadn't noticed any other presence,and defintely not any other Nen. Had she been so angry that she failed to notice? Her thoughts, however, disappeared like smoke the moment Hisoka turned to look at her.

There was terrible quality to Hisoka's casualness as his cold eyes met her own._  
><em>

Her breath stilled, while her heartbeat accelerated once more. He smiled handsomely.

In one fluid movement, Hisoka released his grip on the man's neck and slit his throat with a card before the man could even crumple to the ground. There was a spurt of blood and a horrifying squelch. In an instant, Kaede felt the man's black string snap, and heard the cold _snip_ as his life, like the string, was cut short.

Her blood froze.

Hisoka had returned, in possibly the most dramatic way possible.

Instantly, her brain began racing again. She had known the man was going to die. The black string was enough to prove that. But - so soon - so fast - murdered - _Hisoka!_

Her stomach lurched. This was nothing like the quiet, bloodless death she had seen before. It was an ordinary act of violence for the magician, and for some reason this both repulsed and fascinated Kaede.

"Hisoka," she acknowledged shakily, instinctively on guard. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the dark and foreboding aura that surrounded Hisoka like a funeral shroud. This was his _Nen_, she realized. It was strong and dangerous and frightening, completely unlike her own, which was cold but smooth, like a pane of frosted glass. Hisoka's aura was uneven and volatile. It made her blood feel uncomfortably hot, as if it were about to break into a boil. _It thrilled her._

They stood there in the abandoned alleyway, facing each other without making a sound. The dead man's blood began to create a puddle between their feet.

Kaede had told herself it would not be unusual if Hisoka had forgotten all about her. After all, they had known each other for less than a day, and had barely exchanged words. So she was both surprised and scared when recognition flickered behind those devastatingly attractive eyes, and the red-haired magician smiled.

"It's nice to see you again, fortune-teller-san," he said.

.

"I've been looking for you," Kaede admitted after they had left the alleyway. "And I'm surprised that you remember me."

"You aren't someone I'd forget," he said cheerily. "Besides, it's flattering to know that a lady's looking for you, isn't it?"

Kaede scoffed, but the heat rose to her cheeks anyway. "Don't misunderstand. I need...information, I guess, and I thought you would be the most knowledgeable about it."

"Really? You know there are information brokers out there who can give you practically anything if you pay up."

"I've already tried." This was true. The Zoldyck family was a secretive one, and those who were familiar with the inner workings of the family were either dead or sworn to secrecy for fear of being killed.

This time, Hisoka showed interest, pausing so he could turn to her with a small crooked smile on his lips. "Then what are you looking for?"

For a moment, Kaede was distracted by Hisoka's smile, her pulse fluttering just a tiny bit - Hisoka was extremely handsome, and with a smile even more so. Even if he didn't have his outlandish outfit and appearance, the air of raw confidence he carried about with him drew stares wherever he went. Kaede caught herself before she did something embarrassing, and quickly averted her gaze.

"Not what," she corrected "who. I'm looking for someone."

"Someone?" Hisoka's face fell briefly, his smile replaced by a cute pout. "A guy or a girl?"

Kaede let out a hiss of exasperation and rolled her eyes. "I don't know," she told him truthfully. She hesitated; could she really divulge so much information to someone as suspicious as Hisoka? He was, after all, the worst kind of person.

But then again, what choice did she have?

"I am looking for someone in the Zoldyck family," she said, finally. She reached into her jacket pocket, pressing her lips together into a thin line as she curled her finger around the two pins she had retrieved from the corpses. Even now, they were unnaturally cold, and she felt a feeling of revulsion as her fingers tightened around the smooth, rounded heads. She pulled them out and raised them so Hisoka could see.

"Do you know," she said, very slowly, "someone uses these as a weapon?"

She noticed the shadow that fell over his expression then, his typically playful mood replaced by something harsher and more calculating. If he was surprised, then he did not show it. Instead, he wordlessly took in the two pins, and then flashed Kaede a brilliant smile.

"Only if you have dinner with me," he said brightly.

Kaede hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. "...Sure."

* * *

><p><strong>Okay.<strong>

**So...obviously, I'm trying to move this into a more romantic direction. I was originally afraid to when I started this story, because I didn't think I could handle writing romance properly. Right now I'm still pretty sure I can't handle writing romance. But I want to try, at least for the learning experience. Prepare yourselves for some serious blushing and wincing.**

**The plot is getting seriously complicated. There's just a ton of stuff happening at the same time, at least in my little head. Bear with it! I have planned a finale which will tie most of the loose strings up. Heehee.**

**Anyways, Chapter Three of this story was crap. I tried to fix it as much as I can - you'll find that there's a lot of differences, but it's not perfect. Also, I've edited Chapter Three's author's note with some pretty important information regarding Kaede and the setting of this story, which I was rather vague about. Please reread this story, guys! It's been such a long time since I've updated so there's probably a lot of things you might have missed or forgotten about.**

**Again, thank you so much for the support! Please leave a review - I've decided to try to reply to every signed reviewer from now on, just to show my appreciation :)**

**- Colorless Butterfly**


	10. Chapter 10

**Enjoy~**

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><p>It was, Hisoka admitted to himself, very easy to catch his interest.<p>

A stray glance, a protective stance, an uneasy glare - anything that said "_I have something left to do before you kill me_" - piqued his interest immensely. Because, after all, humans were wonderfully complicated creatures with extremely simple desires. Most people, when faced with him, only thought _"I do not want to die_".

But the fortune-teller. This girl-becoming-a-woman, only a few years younger than himself, had not. There had been fear, naturally, but there had also been resolve when he had faced her the first time, something unbreakable.

"_I will not die here_," her eyes had told him, _"because I have something I must do._" Which hadn't really impressed Hisoka, but rather made him curious. What, after all, was this girl so obsessed with she refused to die?

The obsession had disappeared from her eyes at one point, which made Hisoka feel cheated. It was absolutely not allowed to become something boring once you had caught his attention! So he had shoved her off towards the Heaven's Arena, and felt suitably proud of himself when the obsession had returned to her bones and her fiercely guarded expression. Now all he had to do was wait.

Except Hisoka was a very, very impatient man. And she...was..._so...fucking...slow_.

How long did it take for her to properly learn about her Nen, anyways?! She was a Specialist, a complete Nen natural, a _genius. _But she had never received formal training and was therefore scrabbling foolishly in the dark. He was supremely annoyed. He'd let people live before, because he thought they'd become more interesting and therefore much more pleasurable to kill. But the fortune-teller didn't seem to improve at all. He entertained the thought of just killing her, but the prospect of her Nen ability and 'anomaly' status made him hesitate.

After all, it was incredibly rare to be born with a Nen ability, rather than train and train for it. Except Hisoka didn't particularly care about Kaede's fortune-telling ability. All he could think about was how interesting it would be if a person who was born with Nen actually learned how to fight with it.

A genius who actually developed their Nen. How _absolutely wonderful_ it would be to kill someone like that.

So there had been definite satisfaction when he had returned to the Heaven's Arena and noticed her Nen aura immediately, colder and smoother and infinitely more polished than before. From there, it was easy to track her glass-like Nen to the small alleyway where she had fought with the drunken man.

Hisoka typically welcomed surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant. He was, however, not expecting the sudden, sharp; _hungry _desire he felt when he watched Kaede Hanegawa unleash her killing intent.

She was standing in front of the paralyzed man, eyes glowing intensely with Nen. Her body positioning revealed the pain on her shoulder, but it seemed as if even that was forgotten as her Nen thickened and darkened to become a suffocating cloud. There was no mistaking the furious hate in her eyes, sparkling cold and angry and so, _so_ glorious.

_It. was. maddening..._

He wanted to devour her. He wanted to leap down from the rooftop he had been crouching on and completely possess her until she was thoroughly broken.

_…and it had been too long since he had allowed himself a kill._

_._

Kaede wasn't sure if accepting the offer had been a good decision, considering that Hisoka had just killed a man in cold blood right in front of her, but she desperately wanted to discover more about the elusive Zoldyck assassin. Besides, she thought with a small amount of cheekiness, she was very hungry and Hisoka had offered to pay the bill. Who in their right mind would give up a free meal, anyway?

Kaede inhaled deeply, and gave herself one more glance in the mirror. In the end, she had decided not to dress up too much, partly because she didn't have a dress and mainly because she wasn't comfortable with dresses in general. They were far too constricting in terms of movement, and they had never fit properly on her awkwardly angular body, anyway.

It was surprising how the dark blue blouse and patterned shorts she had decided to wear was actually given to her by Tabitha. Kaede had never been one to deal with fashion, but she was fairly certain that she'd never be able to wear the long gowns and expensive dresses Tabitha always wore with as much elegance, much less agree with anything Tabitha picked out for her. Instead, Tabitha had somehow taken into account Kaede's preferences and had given her a silk blouse that didn't constrict her upper body in the slightest and was in a muted shade of blue-gray that didn't attract unwanted attention. The patterned shorts, similarly, were black and white and didn't constrict her movement while looking...nice.

Wryly, Kaede admitted to herself that Tabitha at the very least knew how to dress people.

Technically, Tabitha had done nothing against Kaede. She had, however, replaced the one thing Kaede had ever loved more than her father, and the resentment was still there. Still, Kaede found it harder and harder to dredge up enough bitterness to hate the lady. Tabitha was a little too beautiful, and a little too polite, but she was also very thoughtful and considerate about others when it came to it. At least Kaede wouldn't have to worry about clothes on her dinner with Hisoka.

_This was...sort of like a date...right?_

Kaede sighed, running her hands through her hair as she opened the door and headed down the hallway.

The past month at the Celestial Tower had evidently changed her somewhat. Kaede could feel the pulsing of blood through her veins, the expansion and contraction of her lungs as she inhaled and exhaled. Her body had become accustomed to fighting within three weeks, something that should have been impossible for a normal human but was possible with Kaede due to the special structure of her Nen and her relentless training.

Hisoka was dangerous. Kaede knew this. He was very, very, dangerous, and it wouldn't be hard for him to kill her within half a second. This bothered Kaede. It also thrilled her, which was equally upsetting. She was all too aware of the way her heart seemed to pick up a little at the thought of Hisoka.

_The blood._ She shivered, her hands tightening momentarily as she thought once again of yesterday afternoon, when Hisoka had appeared out of the blue and completely destroyed the drunk man that had been harassing her. Kaede was accustomed to death to a certain extent, but she had never felt comfortable with it. She had never...

_the almost-beautiful spray as the blood erupted from his neck and spattered everywhere, onto the wall and the ground and Hisoka. The man's panicked expression even at the moment of his death, Hisoka's effortless movements, the casual swipe of his wrist, the slight tilt of his head as he turned to her, the shiveringly sweet feeling of the black thread being cut._

_..._been enraptured by it, and that frightened Kaede more than she could imagine.

.

.

When Kaede found Hisoka in the far corner of the café he had suggested, said red-haired magician was tapping the edge of his empty wine glass lightly with a fingernail, leaning his head on his other hand with a bored expression. A flicker of surprise crossed her expression. Today Hisoka had taken off his face paint and had foregone his usual fighting outfit for a much less flashier and much more standard set of clothes.

In all honesty, he looked almost normal. Kaede slid into the seat across from Hisoka with barely a sound, giving him a small cursory smile as she placed her purse next to her.

When he saw her, Hisoka straightened up. For a beat of silence, the two said nothing and looked at each other, one watching the other with a wary expression and the other with an amused raise of the eyebrows.

A smile that was faintly feral appeared on Hisoka's face. "...Glad you could make it, fortune-teller-san."

.

Kaede stared at her dinner with a sense of apprehension, carefully pushing the flat noodles across the plate with her fork. She hadn't really been sure what she wanted to eat, so she had simply ordered whatever the waiter suggested, which had turned out to be some type of pasta.

If Hisoka was feeling as nervous as she felt, he didn't show it. Instead, he waved his fork cheerfully, and decided to initiate the conversation.

"How's the shoulder~?" he asked.

Kaede's head snapped up from her plate, and she blinked. "I'm sorry?" she asked.

Hisoka smirked at her, and then gestured to her shoulder. "It's hardly been a day. How is it?"

Kaede was a little surprised that he had noticed. After the fight, she had been careful not to let the pain show in her movements or expressions. Then again, Hisoka was a very skilled fighter - he probably would have picked up on any sort of injury right away, no matter how well she hid it. "It still hurts," she told him honestly, "but it's feeling a lot better. I can move it well enough. It just aches."

A subdued silence fell over Hisoka and her as they picked at their dinner for the next few minutes, occasionally engaging in pointless conversation. Kaede did not fail to notice the way his eyes slid over her purse occasionally, as if he knew what was within. She also did not fail to notice how his gaze kept flicking to her face, to her hands, and was unsettled by how reluctant she was to meet his eyes.

To distract herself, Kaede found her eyes wandering, carefully avoiding meeting Hisoka's stare. Instead, she found herself watching him discreetly through the reflection of the window.

The brief flutters of nervousness within her disappeared as she caught Hisoka's expression in the window's reflection, calculating and amused, as if he was keeping a secret. All of a sudden, Kaede felt her tensed muscles relax, her breath slowing as she felt a sense of relief. Her resolve stiffened.

_This was not a simple dinner; this was a war. _And she was comfortable with war.

.

"So," Kaede said, setting down her fork and leaning forward, clasping her hands in front of her, eyes narrowed as she addressed Hisoka directly. Hisoka glanced up at her, one side of his mouth curving upwards as he too, set down his glass and leaned forward, reciprocating her gesture.

"So?" He asked, as if he knew exactly what she was going to ask but would not tell her.

"These," Kaede said. She turned to her purse, and lifted one of the pins to show Hisoka. "You said you'd tell me about them."

The smirk on his face fell a little, but Hisoka gave a noncommittal shrug. "You already know about the Zoldyck family. Of course I don't know who any of the members of the family are, much less how they fight."

A part of her withered.

"_Excuse me!?_" Kaede instantly straightened in anger, a frown darkening her features. Before she could express her irritation in words, however, Hisoka cut her off.

"Tsk," he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards into a lopsided smirk, "I'm not done; I do have something for you. I've seen those pins before. There is definitely a member of the Zoldyck family that uses those pins to fight."

Her frown lessened slightly. As long as he had _something, _then the whole point of this dinner was not lost. "You've seen them before?" she asked, "Where?"

"Well, I don't normally do assassinations," Hisoka's smile widened, no longer pleasant but dangerously lazy, "because they're not really my style. No one who's familiar with the business hasn't heard of the Zoldycks, though."

Kaede narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Instead, she leaned back and waited for Hisoka to elaborate.

"It's a well-known theory that assassins from the Zoldyck family are put through intensive training from birth. Even a child from that family can pull off an entire massacre within minutes. There was an incident several years back, when a string of storeowners were assassinated by someone from the Zoldyck family."

"And...they were killed with pins just like these, am I correct?" She was unimpressed. This was hardly any significant information, but it confirmed the existence of the Zoldyck she was looking for. _In the end, I am getting closer. _

Hisoka leaned forward, his head tilting playfully as he almost purred, "Well, I didn't really pay it much attention until later. You see, I _really like this city. _The Heaven's Arena is one of my favorite places to be, after all. You meet...interesting people."

Her breath hitched, fingers flexing against the napkin in her lap. The look in his eyes was frightening.

"Well," Hisoka said, sitting backwards with a greatly satisfied air, "I haven't seen the owner of those pins, though. If I do, _I'll gladly tell you. _At a price."

"At a price," Kaede nodded in agreement, distracted by the uneasy fluttering that had started in her stomach, "I don't mind paying."

She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. Something cunning glinted in Hisoka's eyes as his smile stretched wider.

"Oh, but money would be a terribly..._boring..._form of payment," he said softly, silkily, dangerously. "And I gave you some information just now, so you..._owe me, ne~?_"

Shivers. All of a sudden Kaede was covered in cold sweat, her palms clammy. Hisoka seemed to be completely in control of his aura, and the way it had leaked out as he spoke had easily turned her blood to ice. This had been his objective from the beginning, she realized, by feeding her a bit of information in order to impose on her a debt.

She had been completely manipulated and maneuvered. He had given her something completely insignificant and had wriggled out of her a promise to repay him in exchange.

"A-another form of payment?" Kaede stammered, unable to disguise the way she shrank from Hisoka's Nen, her brain frantically wondering what in the world Hisoka could possibly want.

Hisoka's lips curved into what could only be considered a smirk, and he leaned forward, his long fingers grasping hers, dancing over the back of her hand. Kaede shivered at the feeling of his calloused fingertips rubbing over her skin, and tried to pull away. He gripped tighter.

"Tell my fortune for me again, fortune-teller-chan~?"

.

Her heart leaped in her throat.

Kaede's hands clenched under Hisoka's, and she forcibly stopped herself from snatching her hands away. Her mouth went dry, a feeling of bitterness appearing in her chest. This must have been what he wanted from her: a foretelling of what would happen next, but the reason why she was not sure.

Asking for her to use her ability...well, in a way, it was both a reasonable demand and the most obvious one. Kaede inhaled deeply, trying to gather her thoughts, rearranging her face into a mask that showed nothing, and swallowed down her nervousness. At least, he did not ask for something she could not give him. "Very well." The unhappiness in her tone was undisguised.

"Aren't you curious about my future, though?" Hisoka slowly lifted his hands from hers, dragging the tips of his fingers across hers as he did. Kaede could not stop the goosebumps that rose from her flesh as his fingers brushed against her knuckles, tangling with her own fingers as he withdrew. Irritated, she twisted her wrists abruptly and grabbed Hisoka's hands, yanking them closer. She ignored the way the back of her hands tingled from his touch, refused to believe the flutters in her stomach were anything more than adrenaline.

"The left hand...shows your connections to others," she said curtly, a little annoyed at the way her heartbeat would not slow down, "and the right hand will show your future. Pick."

Hisoka gestured to his left hand, and Kaede instantly dropped his right hand to focus on the left, reluctant to touch Hisoka any more than she needed to. The feeling of his scarred but pale hands, still incredibly cold, was both familiar and unusual at the same time. For a moment, she was tempted to trace the scars that stretched against his flesh one by one, and wondered what it would be like to have those hands pressed flush against her skin...

Her Nen flared to life a little more violently than it needed to be, and as the strings materialized, Kaede pushed all other thoughts out of her head besides the threads on Hisoka's hand. As expected, the swath of black threads on his hand almost covered all the other threads. Her eyes, drifting to his pinky, noted the white string that was still there. Her gaze automatically flicked to her own hands, where the white string coiled around her pinky as well, glowing softly as it connected their pinkies together.

"Not much has changed," Kaede murmured, her gaze intensifying as they traveled over the tangled strings. "Nothing much, except..._oh._"

Her heartbeat suddenly beat harder against her ribcage. Hisoka, as always, had an innumerable amount of snipped black threads on his hand. This time, though, there was a single black thread, uncut, that stretched out from his thumb and into the far distance.

_Black means death._

Did this mean that Hisoka was going to die? Tentatively, Kaede touched the black string lightly with her index finger. Like the drunk man yesterday afternoon, the image was blurry and indistinguishable. She bit her lip lightly, thinking carefully, before letting go of the string. Hisoka was a fighter. It was very possible that someone was out to kill him. Except...he was so strong, and it was hard to imagine him..._dead_.

Fine. This wasn't the person who would kill Hisoka. So instead, this would be Hisoka's next target? Death worked both ways, after all.

Deciding to experiment, Kaede cautiously reached for a snipped string this time, curious about what would appear. To her surprise, the image came vividly - a large, overweight man in a business suit and stubby, sparse brown hair. She pulled back, considering. The image an uncut string revealed was blurry and indistinguishable, as if the future perhaps was not set in stone, but an already snipped thread was clear.

She _was_ curious, sickeningly so. He was imposing on her an unfair deal she should have refused immediately, but here she was curious about the rest of his strings. She had never seen patterns so unique and interesting within the threads on someone's hands.

"Did you see anything?"

Kaede's concentration wavered. "No," she said, a little too quickly, "nothing too important, anyway. Nothing out of the ordinary."

A chill passed through her, making her freeze, her breath catching in her throat. Slowly, Kaede lifted her eyes to glance up at Hisoka, suddenly frightened.

_He was watching her. _Impatience mixed with irritation colored his aura so suffocatingly she was afraid to move. For some reason, Hisoka was no longer smiling but annoyed, as if he was tired of waiting. For a moment, Kaede paused to admire the raw but silky texture of his aura, the way it seemed to radiate danger and terror and a soft but deadly _i will kill you if you don't amuse me, so try to keep me entertained._

_This is what she hated about him._

Hisoka's half-lidded eyes met hers, the faint look of smugness on his face revealing that he was both completely unashamed he had been caught staring, and pleased that she was suddenly scared. Kaede felt the heat rise to her cheeks despite her fright as his eyes flicked obviously downwards towards her mouth, lingering far too long for her comfort, and then lower still...

She quickly removed her hand from his, releasing his hand as quickly as possible. His eyes darted back up to her face. Kaede sent him a fixed glare, swallowing down the nervousness in her stomach.

"You're going to kill someone," she told him matter-of-factly, "but I don't know who. You'll probably find out soon, unless you already know." Kaede studied Hisoka's face discreetly as she said this, feeling a small sense of satisfaction as he nodded, an amused expression appearing in his eyes.

"I've been hired to kill someone," he said with a casual shrug. "Certain circumstances prevented me from doing it right away. I'm surprised you even picked that up."

Approval was a frightening thing when it came to Hisoka. Now his eyes were slightly narrowed, the hint of a smile on his face as he looked at her. The feeling was almost heady, but Kaede did not allow herself to dwell in it. Instead she focused on what Hisoka's words implied, and how serious those implications were.

Even so, it wasn't her business. He was certainly withholding something from her, but it wasn't worth pursuing. Inhaling deeply, she once again blocked out any stray thoughts and focused on the reading at hand, her fingers gently taking Hisoka's right hand.

"These strings will show your future."

Unlike his left hand, Hisoka's right hand was significantly different - the strings had shifted drastically from the last time she had seen them. Eyes closing to prevent the awkward split-vision that always occurred when the image appearing in her head conflicted with what she actually saw in front of her, Kaede swiped her thumb across the strings on Hisoka's palm.

Before, she had been unable to grasp anything but the most basic of events. Now they were clear as day, and a rush of images flooded her brain as she tried to sort them out.

Kaede frowned behind her closed eyes as she failed to pick up a single distinct image as the images flew by. Slower. She had to do it slower. Again, she lightly dragged a finger across Hisoka's palm, letting the images flick through her head in distinguishable but still rapid succession.

_An empty office. The Ace of Hearts, held loosely in his hand, and then switched into a Jack of Clubs with a simple flick of his wrist. The Heaven's Arena, the bright stadium lights harsh and bright. A dark alleyway, Hisoka's long shadow stretching far behind him under the light of a streetlamp. _

Unnecessary scenes. She didn't know what they meant. Kaede tried again, this time careful as her thumb brushed against Hisoka's strings one after another.

Hisoka's hand tensed abruptly, and Kaede flicked one eye open, looking up at him quizzically. Was it just her, or did he just..._shiver? _

Her heart leapt to her mouth at the way he was looking at her. The expression on Hisoka's face had transformed into something that was undoubtedly an expression of hunger, something that both deeply unsettled Kaede and made her heart pound harder at the same time. A flutter of panic inside her chest, Kaede quickly closed her eyes again, trying not to feel the intensity of his stare as she focused once more on the images that appeared in her head. Gritting her teeth, she gave herself an internal warning not to ever _stroke _Hisoka's palm again, whether she was trying to see the strings more clearly or not. Touching him seemed to always end badly.

The images seemed to shift from one to another seamlessly, and Kaede's eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

_The overcast sky. The office from before, now occupied by a tall, well-groomed, smiling man speaking into a cellphone. A file, clean and unmarked, placed in front of him. Hisoka, lifting the file with a feeling of amusement and anticipation mixed together. _

_A cup of tea, drained; a feeling of disorientation. _

_Movement._

_The cold touch of a gun to the back of his head; a soft click._

A faint chill covered Kaede from head to toe.

_Men rushing in from the door, the window blocked by a desk and a chair. The blank ceiling. The carpeted floor. _

_Dizziness as he stands, the man behind him killed with a hurriedly thrown poker card. The tall, smiling man in front of him, still smiling._

_Hisoka turning around, his movements slowed painfully by the drugs, cards flashing._

_The glint of silver as the blade slams abruptly into his stomach__. Then withdrawn, leaving blood to spurt from the wound, unhampered. Then stabbed into his left side, then his ribcage, again and again and again -_

_God!_ Kaede's nails abruptly dug into the back of Hisoka's hand, her fingers tightening into a crushing grip. All of her concentration shattered, and she snatched her hand from Hisoka's with so much force her elbow knocked a fork off the dinner plate. The blood pounded in her head unnecessarily loudly as her eyes flew open in a mixture of both fear and terror.

Kaede dragged in a shaking, shuddering breath, hands instinctively curling into fists, forcing herself to calm down and to think.

tabbed.

_Hisoka will be drugged by the tea and then attacked and then stabbed, and that is where the images darkened, so it must mean he will die._

Hisoka seemed a little amused by her reaction, and lifted his hand to inspect the crescent-shaped indents on his skin from Kaede's fingernails, an entirely inappropriate smile appearing on his face as he flexed his hand and watched the marks stretch. "See anything interesting?" he asked, oblivious.

Kaede sank back into the seat, her other hand pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to understand what she had just seen, and quell the feelings of panic that were threatening to overflow.

"That..." her voice was a little more panicky than she hoped it would sound like. She drew in another shuddering breath. "I think...that..."

"What did you see?" Hisoka put down his hand at, eyes narrowing in suspicion at her shaky tone.

Somewhere inside of her had been so assured about Hisoka's life. He had escaped death so many times and killed so many others; surely, the red-headed magician would never die. This was something Kaede had almost taken for granted, because Hisoka was so strong and terrifying and confident. He gave off the air of someone invincible.

Except...he was going to die, because the threads of Fate had shown her his death, and if there was one thing that Kaede knew was absolute truth, it was that you could not escape your fate. The panic was choking her, because all she could think about right then was _once again, someone is going to die and I won't be able to do anything but watch..._

.

...but...

This time she had actually seen how he died.

.

Could she actually tell him? Wouldn't that be against the rules somehow, to know how you died?

Wasn't fate unpreventable in first place?

Would saying anything even make a difference?

Her breathing slowed, her panic slowly ebbing away like the waves on a jagged beach. Now she could think. Now she could assess her situation and decide on the best course of action, on whether or not telling Hisoka she had seen his death. There was absolutely no way she could let this opportunity pass, after all, because it was a chance to learn more about her ability.

In this moment, one could say Kaede Hanegawa completely shut down and let her mind narrow on one thing:

_self-preservation._

Her smile was perhaps more frightening than Hisoka's.

.

.

.

"I'll tell you what I saw," she said, and this time she was the one who leaned forward, a predatory gleam in her eyes as she held Hisoka's narrowed gaze for the first time without flinching. "But...it's worth far more than what you gave me about the Zoldycks. You'll...have to give me something a lot more to make up for it."

_You're not the only one who can play games. _This was her solution, the only solution she was willing to consider. This was her warzone. This was the only way she could win.

"Tell me...everything you know about Nen..._and_ _I will tell you how you die._"

* * *

><p><strong>Don't kill me :)<strong>

**Feel free to leave a review! I really want to know what you guys think.**

**Thank you, as always, for reading.**

**- Colorless Butterfly**


	11. Chapter 11

**sorry for the long wait. my life is currently being very hectic right now; fanfiction has not been a priority.**

**to recap: Hisoka has returned. Kaede sees his future and knows he is going to die. They make a deal: Kaede will tell Hisoka how he dies, and in return Hisoka will tell her about Nen, something she has been greatly pursuing. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Her finger tapped against the glass window.<p>

There was a sickening splinter, the sound of a thousand twigs snapping. A spider-web of cracks suddenly spread from the place her finger had touched the glass, and the crackling glass shattered, unable to support its weight any longer.

Kaede withdrew her hand sharply, stepping backwards to avoid the shards of glass that clattered to the ground in front of her, her expression a little surprised. For a moment, she stared at the broken window, her Nen still swirling around the finger she had focused it on.

_What is this?_

She began to laugh, not so much as in happiness as much as in disbelief.

_So..._

_...in the end, it was this easy. _

All the time, she had been missing out on a big property of Nen. She had completely failed to think about the potential applications of Nen, and about what it could be used for.

_What have I been doing for these past few months?_

Nothing. She had been doing nothing but meditating. She had been practicing what she now knew was _Ten, _letting her aura shroud her body and maintaining it while she meditated, but she had been doing nothing further. There had been so much more, always so much more, so many more ways she could have used Nen.

_Damn it!_

Kaede exhaled slowly, eyes fluttering closed. She was unbelievably frustrated; frustrated that she had wasted so much time and angry that she had never bothered to think about _cancelling _her Nen to enter Zetsu, or about using her Nen offensively.

She remembered the times that she had felt so scared of Hisoka, of the times when the air itself around him had bent and turned darker and more frightening and send cold shivers down her spine. She remembered the way her heart had constricted the first time they met, when she felt as if she might die if she made a wrong move. It had been Nen all along.

She remembered the afternoon of the day before, before Hisoka had appeared. She remembered when she felt so furious that she wanted to kill, the way her Nen seemed to surge up inside of her and leak out, dark and suffocating, the way the man had frozen and couldn't move.

So Kaede had used Ten without even realizing it.

Her shoes barely made a sound as she traveled briskly back towards the Celestial Tower, too preoccupied in her thoughts to care about her surroundings. Kaede knew by now that she was a special exception in the world of Nen: while others had supposedly spent years perfecting their Nen technique, the flow of aura came to her as easily as breathing. The _Hatsu _that Hisoka had told her about was supposedly the most difficult form of Nen to attain, but she already had one.

She was a Nen-user with a Specialist-type Nen, the ability to see the Strings of Fate and tell the future. Her Hatsu had already developed, but she hadn't even touched Zetsu and had only skimmed the surface of _Ten_. She was like a train with all its parts rearranged, still functioning, but difficult and more complex to understand.

_Two days left. _Two days until her month was up and she had to return to Tabitha and her father.

Two days to learn everything. It was impossible.

Her heart pounded in excitement anyway_._

.

Kaede slipped into her room quietly, careful not to disturb the others in her corridor that were surely asleep by now.

Hisoka had given her something crucial to understanding more about Nen. They had talked at that restaurant until the sun had long since set and the restaurant was closing, when the streets had been emptied until the only sounds in the still darkness were their quiet voices and their soft footsteps.

Once again, Kaede found herself wondering why Hisoka had even accepted her bargain in first place. He had an ulterior motive; Kaede was sure of that. She had known him for only a short while, but anyone who talked to him once knew instantly that Hisoka never let others read his intentions completely through. He was an unpredictable factor in and of itself.

A sense of guilt crept over her chest, but she squashed it down. In the end, Hisoka had not told her everything about Nen. This she was sure of. He had, however, given her more than enough help.

So in the end, it was an even trade.

_After all...I didn't tell him everything either._

Her aura shrouded her body within the still darkness of her room, and Kaede took a deep breath. _Ren, Zetsu, Ten, Hatsu._

She closed her eyes and smiled.

.

.

.

One more encounter.

Kaede blew out a short breath, fingering her bangs with a frown. She supposed that she should probably cut it. Her hair, which had once been a messily hacked bob, now brushed the top of her shoulders, and her bangs were starting to grow so long they hung in front of her eyes.

Once more, her gaze sweeped across the now empty hotel room, making sure she had left nothing. Her hands tightened lightly on the handle of her suitcase, now fully packed. It was the last day. Today she had to return to her father.

The sky was just beginning to brighten when she set out. Kaede sighed, and zipped up her jacket, flipping up the hood to defend herself against the distinctively chilly air. The wheels of her suitcase clicked lightly every time they ran over a crack in the sidewalk.

She stopped at an intersection, eyes squinting against the sky as she determined which direction she should go in. Her breath made soft puffs of vapor in the air.

"Boo."

Kaede's nerves went haywire. All of a sudden, she was acutely aware of a deep chuckle behind her, warm breath fanning against her ear and sending shivers down her spine. Instinctively, she whirled around. Her breath hitched.

"...Hisoka," she said, her voice impressively passive despite her surprise. A small part of her was extremely frightened. Hisoka had made his way behind her without a single sound - she hadn't heard or felt him approach in the slightest.

"Good morning, fortune-teller-chan~"

_God, _he was gorgeous. Under the soft morning light, every feature of of his painted on face was clearly defined, his hair slicked back into his typical flamboyant manner. Even under the makeup, she could see the strong sculpting of his jawline, the high, prominent cheekbones, and that _irritating grin._

His smile was slightly lopsided, the right side pulling up just a little higher than the others. Kaede had the sudden realization that she was ogling, and she quickly glanced away.

"I didn't take you for someone who normally goes on morning walks," Kaede said mildly, her grip tightening on the handle of her suitcase. Hisoka's eyes darted downwards, and his eyebrows rose.

"No, I normally don't," he said, "but I saw you, and figured it wouldn't be bad to at least say hello."

"You didn't have to appear so suddenly," Kaede muttered under her breath, fingers tightening on the suitcase. "I didn't even hear you."

"Why are you leaving so soon?" Hisoka asked, glancing pointedly at the suitcase.

The light turned green, and they crossed the street together. Kaede exhaled, watching as her own breath disappeared into the air. "I'm only leaving for a little bit. I'll still be in the area, though."

"Shame," Hisoka said, his eyes sliding sideways to meet hers. A faint smirk tugged at his lips. "It's terribly boring when I don't have a match, so I had been hoping for some sort of entertainment during my stay. How high did you get?"

"100th floor," Kaede said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. She was very clearly reminded of the difference in power between Hisoka and her. Compared to Hisoka, who was a highly skilled and experienced fighter, she was akin to a fish that struggled to use its gills in the water. Even if her control over her Nen was better than most, she was still extremely inexperienced when it came to actually applying any Nen skills.

"You got to the 100th floor in a month?"

"Three weeks," Kaede corrected, unsure of what Hisoka thought. "I was trying to find you."

"Hmm," Hisoka made a a vague noise. They lapsed into a brief silence, letting the sound of Kaede's suitcase wheels rolling on the ground fill the gap in their conversation. Because of the early morning, the streets were eerily empty.

"Hisoka," Kaede finally said, "we both know you're not the type to randomly greet someone this early in the morning. What do you want?"

There was a brief pause. Kaede risked a glance at Hisoka, only to realize that he had stopped walking, and was instead looking at her, his eyes narrowed.

She moved to turn away. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, pulling lightly, but firmly.

"What are you plotting, Kaede-chan?"

Kaede froze. His voice had been soft, but there was a faint, sharp edge to those words that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Hisoka tugged at her wrist again, spinning her around so they were facing each other. The expression in his eyes was almost lazy, with a hint of amusement.

Kaede refused to be intimidated by the way he was watching her. She refused to believe the fluttering in her stomach was anything other than adrenaline. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "W-What?"

"I didn't think you were hard of hearing," Hisoka pulled her closer, so close that she could feel his body heat, his unnaturally cold hands. "I said, what are you plotting, Kaede Hanegawa?"

Despite herself, Kaede shivered. Hisoka, in all his raw energy, _radiated _danger and strength. And some part of her fluttered at having caught his attention.

She swallowed down rising panic.

"Come on now, Kaede-chan," his voice was childishly scolding. "We both know you haven't just been loitering around while I was gone. What have you found, and what are you plotting?"

Her heart constricted within her chest. _He's just not going to let up, is he? _

"I know you've found something," Hisoka said, and even though his voice remained lilting and singsong-like Kaede detected a hint of seriousness, an edge of coldness. "I know you've found something _im~por~tant~, _something so important you've decided to finally pull out your cards and begin moving. Other people might be fooled, but I'm not. You're a dangerous one, you."

_No, _Kaede thought grimly, _the dangerous one here is not me. _Only Hisoka would have been able to notice something so well-concealed, something she had been withholding for so long.

"You're suspicious_,_" Hisoka said softly, his reddish-gold eyes gleaming. "You've been suspicious, ever since you left. Ever since I came back. _What are you hiding?_"

_Everything._

Of course there were things she had not told Hisoka: important things that should have been said, but things that she did not allow herself to say. So how did he know?

"I..." Her words seemed caught in her throat. She swallowed painfully. "I can't tell you right now."

She pushed lightly against Hisoka's chest, and to her surprise Hisoka yielded, stepping back and allowing her just enough room to get by. Kaede grabbed her suitcase.

"You're not telling me," Hisoka echoed. There was a pout in his voice. "What exactly are you planning, Kaede-chan~?"

Her smile became bitter.

"Let's meet again," Kaede said softly, "...I can't tell you right now, but I will. In fact, I'll probably need your help."

_What exactly are you plotting, Kaede-chan~?_

"But if you really want to know what I'm planning, I suppose..."

"...it's something _terrible._"

.

.

.

"Welcome back, Kaede. How was your month at the Celestial Tower?"

Kaede smiled at her father, but the smile did not reach her cold green eyes. "It was very..._interesting. _Thank you."

She accepted the folder, and carefully opened it, spreading its contents over the tabletop. Kaede found herself once again admiring the thoroughness of her father and Tabitha's plan for subterfuge. It was at once brilliantly thought out and yet despicably amoral.

_Charm your way in, and obtain proof of their underhanded deals._

Not difficult. The CEO was superstitious, and Kaede had full confidence that her fortune telling would be completely accurate.

After all, these past three days had not been entirely fruitless.

.

Her hair had been lengthened, somehow, and had been given curls that fell just below her shoulders. Her bangs had been swept to the side, pinned by a large, ornate flower that was tucked behind her ear. The makeup artists had done their job: somehow they had managed to make her eyelashes long, her eyes big and bright, her cheekbones high and prominent, her skin smooth and flawless. Her dress was a light green that slowly became darker and darker, ending in a near-black shade right below her knees. Kaede shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the thin straps. Despite her discomfort in the loose garment, the dress itself was actually very light, clearly made of a high quality fabric.

Peering into the mirror, Kaede tried to find some semblance of her past self. Gone were the hastily hacked away bangs, the gaunt cheeks, the dirty face. Gone were the boyish clothes, the untidy appearance. Staring back out of the mirror was a high class lady. Befitting for the daughter of a rich businessman.

_How awful. _In the end she was just another painted upon face.

"You look beautiful!" The door creaked. Kaede turned to see Tabitha standing in the doorway.

"The dress brings out your eyes," Tabitha said, smiling. "They did a good job, didn't they?"

Kaede hesitated, but could not help but to reply, "I don't look like myself."

"No," Tabitha said, moving forward so that she was right in front of Kaede, "this is you. You were always pretty. A number of circumstances just prevented it from showing. You know, when you ran away, your father searched for you like he was obsessed. I've never seen anyone who cared for his daughter more."

Her instincts told her to reply guardedly, to show Tabitha the hostility that Kaede had originally treated her with. But the past month had changed Kaede somewhat, and now she told herself that it no longer mattered. In the end, after all, Tabitha seemed as if she genuinely wanted to make amends with Kaede. Some things would never be forgotten, but they could always be forgiven.

Besides, she had other more pressing matters to attend to.

"Is it time for lunch?" Kaede asked, and smoothed down the front of her dress.

.

.

.

Hisoka had been completely right.

There were things Kaede hadn't told Hisoka.

Of course, there were things she didn't have to tell. She didn't have to tell Hisoka, for example, that she had recently been in contact with her father, or that the reason she had wanted to meet Hisoka again was not really because of the Zoldyck assassin or to learn more about Nen but simply because she wanted to see him again. In fact, she didn't want him to know that. Kaede did not want Hisoka to know how much his unexpected appearances and disappearances affected her.

However, there were certain things that, as Kaede saw her surroundings blur through the window of the car she was riding in, she wondered if she should have told him.

For example, she had not told Hisoka the exact specifics of how he would die.

She hadn't lied; she had told him that he would be drugged during a meeting of some sort in an office, and then ambushed by several people, one of whom would stab him in the gut to immobilize him and then keep stabbing until he was dead. This she had seen and confirmed with her strings.

However, she hadn't told Hisoka where the building was, or that it was overlooking a very familiar street.

She had not told Hisoka that she, in fact, recognized the man who would be responsible for killing him. She recognized him because the smiling man who had been responsible for the ambush was the same as the man in the picture emailed to her by Tabitha just the day before.

She had not told Hisoka that she would be having a meeting with the person responsible for his death a mere three days after she saw his death.

No; these things Kaede did not tell Hisoka. She smoothed her calloused, bony fingers over the surface of the folder Tabitha had given her. She opened it briefly, took note of the picture attached to the file within.

_Mr. Richards, age 32. CEO_.

It was a fairly boring resume, with nothing overly suspicious. He was just another man who had inherited the business from his own father and then became extremely successful.

_This man is going to kill Hisoka._

Once again, Kaede pushed down guilt. She really should have told Hisoka everything. _I'll tell him later, _she thought to herself, _later. I need to make sure of some things first._

Her Nen wrapped around her body, and she glanced down at her hands. They were still the same - only a few threads could be seen. The rest were seemingly concealed under a web of colorless threads, just like before.

She clenched her fists experimentally, watching the strings shift. She closed her eyes.

.

.

So this was the smiling man.

"Miss Kaede Yasukawa, is it?"

They had given her a false name, and with good reason, but Kaede still felt uncomfortable with borrowing a last name that wasn't actually hers. She had never really been good with lying. In her entire life, she had never been familiar with spinning tales from the top of her head, and had never developed the ability to lie convincingly. That had been the job of other people.

The man before her was tall, and handsome too, with rich brown hair that had been styled neatly and a charming smile. He welcomed her in, and she smiled back, allowing her coat to be taken and to be motioned to a seat. He looked exactly like the picture.

She caught sight of herself in the window's reflection, and realized that her smile was an exceedingly uncomfortable one.

_In the end, I am still bad at lying._

"I've heard many things about you, Yasukawa-san. They say you're a fortune-teller?"

"Yes," Kaede replied, her smile fading slightly. "I must say I've heard many things about you as well, Mr. Richards. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The young CEO laughed, and Kaede found herself comparing it to Hisoka's laugh, forgetting to respond with a smile.

"Well, Yasukawa-san, the pleasure is all mine. I'm a very superstitious person, honestly. When I heard that a young and beautiful fortune-teller had asked for an appointment with me of all people, I wanted to meet you at once."

Kaede gave him a pleasant smile, tugging gently at the hem of her dress as she did so. She didn't know how she should react.

The man smiled winningly, and sat down in a chair across from her. "You mentioned to my secretary that you could provide very valuable information about my company's future if you were allowed to meet me. I can't help but be slightly doubtful - how will I know you aren't making things up as you go?"

Of course. The challenge was here. Kaede let out a deep breath, and nodded. "Of course," she said, "Give me your hand, please."

_Vows and Limitations. _Something Hisoka had told her about only a few days ago, and something she had managed to work out within those three days.

This was Kaede's Limitation on her Nen, and the Vow she had placed upon herself. In exchange for her using her ability to see the future, the client would repay her with an equivalent amount of information. The information's value would be deemed by how important it was to her, and as a result, the accuracy and clarity of the scenes the Strings showed her increased.

So in this case, Kaede should ask herself not _what will I see, _but rather _what am I going to ask?_

She had already long since made up her mind.

"I see strings," Kaede said before she took Mr. Richard's offered hand. "I have an ability that lets me predict the future based on the strings I see. The strings are always on a person's hands, and when I touch them, I can see the future. But recently, I've noticed things about my own hands..."

_Like spider's silk._

Mr. Richard's hand was warm and lightly calloused, fingers rounded and healthy.

"I have something covering my hands," she said. "Colorless strings, with no intention but to conceal. It shouldn't be like this, because I never placed any sort of condition on myself making it so that I would be unable to see the strings on my own hands."

"Lately...it's become clear to me lately that these strings aren't there because of me."

Traces of Nen, lingering amidst the shroud of colorless threads, not hers. Hisoka must have noticed it. Someone else had been tampering, but how? And why? Clearly she could not trust her recollections. Clearly there was something amiss that she could not place.

_There is something wrong with me._

Her eyes closed.

"In two days, you will try to make an underhanded deal with the local mafia," Kaede said, the images flowing past her eyelids. "You're going to succeed - in fact, you're going to earn profit in the thousands. With this money you will make several investments, making sure you keep your underground transactions well-concealed from the public. The company's stocks will raise unexpectedly in two weeks. You'll be doing very well."

"However..." she paused momentarily, "This is all relatively boring. Anyone could predict this, because it's not exactly unexpected. So I'm going to go a bit further..."

She was suddenly nervous, but she swallowed it down, forcing her voice to be even and assured, as if she truly wasn't taking a huge gamble.

"The problem here is that you will never profit enough. After all, there's a rival company that's matching your every move. Your company is suffering," she said. "You are in heavy competition with a rival company, and desperate times require desperate measures...right?"

It would have been foolish of her to think otherwise. Her father had become so desperate he had asked her to sabotage this man's company. Of course the other company had been desperate too. It had become less of a competition for reputation and profit and more of a competition of _who will, in the end, become the sole winner? _The one with the most political power, and the one that came out on top could only get there through brute force.

It was pleasing, really, to feel the man's hands twitch lightly, as if he was nervous.

"You're an impatient person," Kaede said. "You want success, and quickly - it shows in your business deals and investments. That's why you're willing to deal with the mafia, and why you're willing to take so many risks. You want your company to become even more powerful that in already is - and in order to do that, you don't mind squashing down any other rival companies that would offer competition."

Kaede opened her eyes, and was pleased with the unsettled expression on Mr. Richard's face.

"I...am impressed," he said.

Kaede narrowed her eyes. Even in this situation, he retained some semblance of composure. _A politician through and through. _She had completed what Tabitha and her father had asked of her.

She wasn't done. There was one last thing.

"My strings never lie," Kaede said, and she felt as if her voice seemed a little strained now, as if it pained her to speak. "My strings will always tell the truth...so I will know if you are lying. I only need confirmation."

She dropped Mr. Richard's hands.

_I've been hired to kill someone. Certain circumstances prevented me from doing it right away. I'm surprised you even picked that up._

"His name is Hisoka," and this was her battlefield again, her warzone. She was finally revealing her cards. "Red hair, pale skin. A star on his right cheek, a teardrop on his left, wearing a magician's outfit. He seemed perfect - brutally strong, frighteningly skilled,willing for hire, and yet manageable, because he isn't very well known. You didn't want an especially notable assassin, like one of the Zoldycks. No - instead, you wanted someone easier to manage, someone who guaranteed success but wouldn't be difficult to remove."

"Yasukawa-san..." Mr. Richards swallowed, "I have no doubt of your abilities. You may stop now."

"_I'm not done,_" Kaede hissed. Her Nen swirled around her, shrouding her, like a cocoon of liquid glass. "Who did you hire Hisoka to kill...and why are you planning to kill Hisoka afterwards?"

_What are you plotting, Kaede-chan~?_

"Answer me," Kaede said, "and I will tell you everything you want to know. Help me get rid of these bothersome threads on my hands, and I will make you rich. _Make a deal with me._"

* * *

><p><strong>Remember those colorless threads?<strong>

**Yeah, they're important. Sort of. It's complicated. You see, I gave Kaede an absolutely god-awful backstory...so this is my apology. Plot twists will abound. Be prepared.**

**I love you guys :)**


	12. Chapter 12

_to recap: Two businesses are intent on destroying each other. Kaede's father has sent her to gather evidence that the other CEO, Mr. Richard, is breaking the law. Meanwhile, Kaede figures out the role that Hisoka is about to play in her father's death, and decides to step in..._

* * *

><p><em>.<em>

_[Good afternoon, Kaede-chaaan~]_

**_...Hello, Hisoka. How are you, and why are you texting me?_**

_[You promised me a date this morning~! :-( Did you forget~?]_

**_...A date?_**

_[So you did forget, although it's no matter. You were going to tell me allll about your super secret plan, remember~?]_

**.**

**.**

_[Great~ I'll give you directions for tonight, then...]_

_._

Kaede shut her phone, only to have it buzz once more. She sighed. She picked up her bag, and slipped into her jacket.

"Tell Tabitha I'm going out," she told the butler.

.

_Kaede was not stupid._

_Her years of fortune-telling, while giving her little familiarity with Nen, allowed her much experience in the way the future she saw played out. Usually, what she saw was not the bigger picture. After all, she couldn't see the past, or the circumstances regarding the scene she saw._

_But she could guess. And it didn't take long before she had pieced the puzzle together._

_It had always sort of bothered her, the way Hisoka had approached her after she had returned to her father. When they had first met, he held nothing more than passing interest, recognizing her Nen ability and treating her with only mild curiosity. She had given him a reading then, and had seen a future of which she wasn't terribly concerned about and he didn't seem to take seriously. That was the way their meetings went. He had always treated her as something to pass the time playing with._

_"When I first met, Hisoka," she said to the CEO, "I read his strings. I saw in his future a summoning in September."_

_Mr. Richards raised his eyebrows, and nodded slowly. "I hired Hisoka at the beginning of September. We had heard of him from one of our agents who visited the Heaven's Arena."_

_September, the month where things slowly began to escalate._

_She had left the Heavens Arena, returned to her father, and vowed vengeance. He had left and gone somewhere, and when he returned, there was something different. Hisoka had seemed much more interested, and much more cautious. He had approached her and asked for her to read his strings again, this time with his intentions closely secured and hidden._

_Kaede hadn't understood at the time. She had wondered if it was perhaps he had recognized the improvement in her Nen, or perhaps in her strength. Or perhaps he had simply developed faith in her fortune-telling abilities. After all, she was now a fighter, slowly adapting to the world of Nen she now saw. But she was wrong._

_He had probably wanted to use her fortune-telling abilities, yes. But in the end, it was only because he had done his research._

_"You wanted to get rid of your rivals in business, so you did, one way or another. I'm sure you did them smartly, made sure you wouldn't be implicated in the crime in any way." Her father had, when calling her back, told her that his business was the last one standing against Mr. Richard's in the area. Kaede hadn't paid it much thought, until now._

_"But there's another business in the way," Kaede continued, "a business who you simply cannot sabotage without getting found out - too many guards, too much caution and care to destroy the business simply. I'm sure you had exhausted all your options until you became desperate."_

_There were only a few more pieces missing. Why was Mr. Richards so desperate to become the most powerful business in the region that he was willing to hire a killer? It didn't seem worth the effort, especially if he was going to try to get rid of the killer afterwards. Surely there was something beyond that. There were very few people willing to go so far for more power._

_"Careful, Yasukawa-san," Mr. Richard's voice was amicable, but with a hidden threat. "I believe in superstition, but in politics I will remain ruthless. Do not think knowing my plans will make me stop them."_

_"I don't care about your tug-of-war," Kaede replied coldly, her eyes narrowing. "There is no benefit in me telling about your secrets or your plans. To me, your political games are nothing more than something I can use to get what I want."_

_The CEO leaned forward stiffly, his face pale and serious. For a moment, Kaede felt deeply unsettled under his scrutinizing stare, but pushed her feelings away. There was no turning back; she had taken out the bottom of the card house and now there was nothing she could do but watch the way the cards fell._

_Something akin to understanding appeared in the CEO's eyes. "Very well," he said, smoothly standing from his chair. "And what is it that you want?"_

_She felt a slight sense of relief; he had accepted her offer. Now there was only her price._

_Kaede paused for a moment, choosing her reply carefully._

_"You have...power," she said, finally. "Connections. People who know things, or can find them out. There is something I need to do, and in my current situation, I cannot make a move. I am a fortune-teller; I know what you want and I can help you attain it, but only if you help me. It's a fair bargain."_

_Mr. Richards nodded. "So it's a trade. You want my connections and I want your ability."_

_Kaede nodded, and smiled, bitterly. "Exactly."_

_._

_._

She was _deeply _regretting her decision.

Kaede looked at the building with a complicated expression on her face, noting the darkened windows, the faint smell of smoke and alcohol, the bright neon signs that had only just flickered to life. The sun was barely above the horizon; dusk had only just begun, and the sky had turned gray with the first signs of night.

"It's a bar," she deadpanned.

"It's private," Hisoka replied, a faint hint of amusement in his voice. "You wanted private, right?"

"A bar," she repeated flatly.

It was a raucously distasteful kind of bar, the kind of bar she had never really approached before. She'd always skirted around them, always let other people go in and do whatever they were supposed to do. There was barely any movement behind the darkened windows of the bar, although it was to be expected. The sun was only just setting, while the moon had yet to rise. There was only a hint of deep orange on the horizon. Kaede was, however, pretty sure that the bar would begin to fill up soon.

"What," Hisoka asked teasingly, as if he felt her hesitation, "you've never been to one? It's a bar. We can talk in private, avoid other people without being suspicious, and get drunk. It's the best kind of place for secrets to be told, didn't you know~?"

Kaede sighed resignedly, and removed her hands from her pockets. "You are such an eccentric man."

His smirk was palpable as he gestured her to the door, pushing her forward by pressing his palm against the small of her back. For some reason, the simple touch felt like a death threat. "Ladies first, fortune-teller-chan~"

.

_"So you want me to look for...a Nen remover?"_

_"A Nen remover," Kaede affirmed. "Quickly. You can get it done, right? I've done my research. You have the greatest underground information network in this area. If you can't find a Nen remover, then no one can."_

_Although her words were flattering, there was steel in her voice and a threat in her eyes. Kaede did not pretend she trusted this man. After all, in her eyes he was nothing more than a greedy, power-hungry businessman who had no trouble in breaking off contracts the moment he felt as if it would benefit him more to do so. _

_The CEO tilted his head, once again studying her with an expression of dissatisfaction. "Then we have a deal."_

_"Deals to you are meaningless," Kaede replied, "or otherwise you wouldn't even think of killing someone you had hired."_

_Mr. Richard folded his hands together, and smiled his trademark smile. "_You haven't given me what I want yet. _And in this case, I do not feel as if it would be difficult to find such a Nen remover. We shall see. Your mistrust may be misplaced."_

.

"So tell me, Kaede-chan, about what you've been plotting so secretively. I'm _dying _to know..."

"Funny," Kaede replied dryly, "I'm sure you have an inkling already. Why don't you guess?"

Hisoka grinned at her words, leaning forward. "I got hired to kill your father."

"I know."

"Isn't the way coincidences work wonderful?"

She paused. "I'm sorry?"

Hisoka shrugged, threw her a look. "You were so _boring _when we first met, Kaede-chan. It was your Nen ability I was interested in, not some poor malnourished fortune street-rat. I didn't really bother with you, in all honesty."

"Your words sting," Kaede remarked blandly, "but they don't do much. Keep going."

"But then, a few months later, I get asked to kill someone for a _very _suspicious amount of money. Did you know you stop earning money on the 200th floor of the Arena? Believe it or not, I was sort of in need of money, so this sort of offer was the kind I couldn't refuse. So I dig around a bit, do my job. And what a surprise! I discover that - "

Her voice was hard. "The street-rat was actually your target's daughter?"

"Ran away when she was ten and missing ever since. Awfully childish of her."

She played with the straw in her drink, watching the bubbles floating to the surface of the liquid. "Hmm."

"But you know," Hisoka said evenly, playing with his own drink, "in the greater scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, does it? You just keep surprising me."

"Surprising you?" Kaede had the deeply unsettling feeling she was goading him on with these questions, as if she was playing with something she really wasn't supposed to play with.

His smile was vaguely animalistic. "Right. I don't get you, _Ka-ede-chan_. Normally, I'm good at these kinds of things, but with you I'm always surprised. What's motivating you? How did you improve your Nen so fast? Why did you leave the Celestial Tower? Why did you go back to your father? Which reminds me, I'm really curious..." There was a vindictive glee in his voice that was deeply unsettling. "...do I kill him?"

She froze. "What?"

"Your father," Hisoka said, "the plan. Do I succeed in killing him?"

She paused too long before answering; his question had thrown her off-balance. Kaede swallowed, felt her hands clench into fists in her lap.

.

No one noticed them in the corner of the bar. Despite the man's shockingly red hair, or the woman's disconcerting green eyes, they remained hidden and out of sight, their eccentricity lost in the wildness of the music and dim lights.

The man gestured, an ever-present smirk playing on his lips. The woman seemed to stiffen, and then relax. Compared to his smooth demeanor, her posture made her seem guarded and jagged.

"Well," the woman said, playing with the rim of her glass, green eyes burning with something that could not be named. "since you're asking so nicely, Hisoka.._.my plan is_ - ..."

.

"I have colorless threads on my hands, and they don't belong to me. I want to know what they're hiding, so I've made a deal with your employer..."

.

"Excellent, mademoiselle," Hisoka told her, a grin on his face. "He does want to kill me. But don't speculate on it too much. He only wants to kill me because I have gained access to something he doesn't want me to know, and I can assure you that it has nothing to do with you. Although I must say, I didn't really expect you to come up with such an...outlandish plan."

She was suddenly struck with self-doubt, the brief edges of panic twisting inside her chest. It was an exceedingly selfish plan, Kaede admitted to herself. She had not made the plan while considering the conclusion for other parties involved; there was no such winning solution. In the end, her plan was pure ruthlessness. She intended to get the answers to her questions without regard to others.

"Am I being too arrogant?" she asked aloud, and was surprised when Hisoka began laughing.

"Nonsense," Hisoka replied, the smirk on his face causing one corner of his lip to curl upwards more than the other. "I like it. Your plan is exciting."

.

.

.

.

A bar had been _such a bad idea._

It started with him ordering a drink, a manly one, just to show off. Then he had noticed Kaede eyeing him dubiously, and he had ordered another drink for her just to see her reaction. Then he had purposely given her a look, a look that warned of _danger _and _crazy _and _let's do something completely mad, _and smiled at her slightly panicked expression.

Then of course he had started wondering what she'd be like if she was drunk, and then one thing lead to another and now he was so full of alcohol he was beginning to feel sick.

But screw that, right? He was in a bar. What were bars good for besides spilling secrets and getting drunk, preferably not in that order?

At least he'd gotten Kaede drunk too.

.

.

She really shouldn't have complied. She really shouldn't have even agreed to meet Hisoka at a bar, of all places.

The dim lights were doing her no good; neither was the smell of alcohol and blaring music and bodies grinding on the floor. She did not need to be sitting at a table of all places, feet tucking under the seat, across from Hisoka. She did not have to see the playful quirk of his eyebrows, his smirk as he folded his hands together and leaned forward, eyes glinting.

She really really really needed to get out of here. The loud music was drowning her thoughts, and she _really shouldn't have _drank that last glass of alcohol.

Honestly, she wasn't even that good with alcohol. Of course she'd tasted it before, but never more than a glass. But of course Hisoka had made the executive decision to order lots of alcohol in order to get drunk, and get _her _drunk, and proudly announced that getting drunk together was a symbol of being partners in crime...or something like that.

Fleetingly, Kaede remembered that alcohol was supposed to reduce brain function, and slowed the body's processes down. There was something about inhibitions, and intoxication, but the smell of alcohol was swallowing her senses and her head had begun to spin.

How long had she even been here? The sun had set a long time ago, and the bar had filled up since then.

"I'm leaving," Kaede finally told Hisoka, and slid out of the booth. She took a deep breath, feeling the world tilt slightly as she got up. _Damn, _she had drank too much. She placed a hand on her forehead, inhaled deeply, felt the world spin, readjusted. "It's getting too late."

There was a tugging at the back of her shirt, stopping her from moving forward.

Kaede turned, and met Hisoka's gaze. She twisted clumsily, felt his fingers slip away. He reached for her again.

"Hisoka," she said, her tiredness somewhat replaced by a hint of nervousness, "what are you doing?"

"Whaaat~?" he drawled, lazily, his fingers grappling gracelessly at her shirt, finally reaching her wrist and her hand. He grasped her wrist, pulling again, loosely. She tried not to flinch at the feeling of his cold hands on her warm skin. "Leaving so soon?"

"Hisoka, you're really really drunk." And judging from the dizziness in her own head and the dull feeling that had begun setting over her limbs, she was drunk too.

There was a hint of a smirk, a small lift of his lips. "I knoww~"

For a pause, they stared at each other in silence. Kaede had trouble understanding the expression on Hisoka's face. She waited for him to release her wrist, but he never did. Instead he just looked at her expectantly.

With trepidation, Kaede realized that her now "partner-in-crime" was absolutely drunk to the point of stupor.

Kaede rubbed at her eyes tiredly, and batted Hisoka's hand away from her wrist. With a sigh of resignation, she reached down, and pulled him off the seat. Unexpectedly, there was little resistance. "Come on, Hisoka," she said, wearily, all too aware of the dizziness within her own head, "you need to go home, too."

.

.

They finally arrived at the door to his apartment. Hisoka groaned as he tried to adjust, but things kept blurring out of focus and his head kept spinning. He really hadn't been lying; in his intoxicated state, he doubted that he had enough limb control to walk, not to consider unlocking his apartment door with the key. Normally, he'd be okay with just passing out in the hallway, but that never ended well in the morning.

This was very bothersome in all honesty. He was a man who could normally hold his liquor, but it had been such a long time since he'd gone out drinking and he was pretty sure he had consumed well over his limit. He pouted slightly at the idea that his body still had its limits, as if there were still some things he had yet to surpass. In this respect, he was a bit of a narcissist. Hisoka liked to think he was in control of things.

"Where is the key, Hisoka?"

Aha! Hence his trusty assistant, who'd be helping him with pretty much everything.

He wasn't quite sure how he convinced her to go home with him. In any other situation, he'd be smirking at the idea, but some part of him was pretty sure the only reason Kaede had gotten into the taxi with him was to make sure he didn't fly into a murderous rage and kill the taxi driver while still on the road. Clever girl.

He waved his hand clumsily, struggling to move his mouth to form the right words. "It's underneath the mat, left corner."

Kaede stumbled slightly as she bent down to retrieve the key. Hisoka was suddenly worried for a moment. Considering that they were both drunk and that Kaede only had a little bit more brain function than he did at the moment, it wouldn't be surprising if _both _of them ended up sleeping outside in the hallway. Almost ominously, Hisoka remembered that your alcohol tolerance was supposed to be better if you had a higher body mass.

Embarrassing. Even if Kaede had drank significantly less than he had, wasn't she supposed to be more drunk than this?

"Damn it, this stupid door is not opening," Kaede let out an exasperated noise. She had somehow managed to fit the key into the lock, but the door seemed stuck. "Hey, Hisoka, help me-"

He leaned over, unintentionally trapping her against the door as he gave the door a forceful shove. The door swung open, and both of them stumbled into his apartment. Hisoka teetered dangerously, and caught himself against the door frame.

"Ughh," he heard Kaede groan somewhere in the dark, "finally."

He didn't even bother to flip on the light switch. Instead he just stumbled into his own apartment, surprised at feeling of relief he felt when he shut the door behind him.

.

.

He could feel Kaede watching him warily, with an expression akin to _what crazy will you pull now _and he grinned when he turned to face her, because they were both drunk and exhausted and she was too tired to resist when he pulled her forward, the two of them stumbling into his bedroom.

"What are you doing?" she asked, tripping over her own feet, surprise overcoming the exhaustion in her voice as he tugged her into the room.

He chuckled, pulled her closer. "Why don't you stay over for the night?"

Her cheeks flushed adorably in a mixture of panic and anger. "What are you talking about, Hisoka?"

"Stay," he found himself saying, "it's just for a night. You're tired too, right?"

In the darkness, he could only see her still silhouette from the small shafts of moonlight that permeated through the window. He smiled, even though he knew she couldn't see it. He could feel her hesitation.

"There's only one bed, Hisoka. Where would I sleep?"

He sort of liked the way she said his name when she was tired; it held a tone of familiarity and wariness at the same time. "We can share," he said, and tugged at her arm again. She resisted.

"No," she said.

"Come on," he said, "you can barely stand." He stepped closer to her, so they were chest to chest, his body easily dwarfing hers.

He felt her tense, felt her wrist rotate in his hands, and was unusually aroused by the way he could feel her bones shift underneath her skin.

"Hisoka," Kaede said with a tinge of deep exhaustion, "are you trying to seduce me?"

"What," he smirked, pulled her towards the bed, "was it obvious?"

"You're drunk," she told him.

"You're drunk too," he pointed out.

Her voice remained wary. "Are you going to rape me?"

"No," he chuckled, sitting down on the bed. He still hadn't let go of her wrists.

"You're really drunk, Hisoka."

He tugged her wrists towards him, quickly, and to his amusement she pitched forward, unable to keep her balance. He scooted backwards onto the bed, allowing Kaede space.

"I won't do anything," he told her with about as much sincerity as he could put in his voice. "Just go to sleep."

For a moment, she didn't move, and he thought that maybe she would stand up, leave. To his surprise, she relented instead with a sigh, slowly climbing into the bed and wriggling beneath the covers. He waited for a few seconds, and then shrugged.

She never failed to surprise him. Maybe she was more tired than she had let on, or perhaps she was actually much more drunk than he'd perceived.

_Are you going to rape me?_

Hmm, it wasn't unappealing. Over the past few months, she had become much healthier, her almost unsightly thinness now replaced with blood and flesh. Hisoka sat up, feeling the mattress shift under his body. He rolled over so that he was leaning over her.

Her green eyes opened, slid over to meet his. Hisoka bit back a faint smirk. Her eyes were truly the one fascinating feature about her. It was unusual for an Asian woman to have green eyes, after all. Under the moonlight, her eyes seemed to glow; they gave her face an exotic look.

Kaede closed her eyes again, and lightly pushed against Hisoka with an elbow. She turned so her face was muffled by the pillow, and mumbled something similar to "_go to sleep, my head hurts._"

Hisoka flopped back down on his side of the bed, sighing as he did so. _Too drunk__. _

He had the faint feeling that if he moved too much, the spinning inside his head would move down to his stomach again, and he really didn't trust his brain's control over his limbs. He was far too tired to really do anything.

He felt Kaede shift beside him, roll onto her back.

"Hisoka?" she mumbled, her voice sleepy and slurred.

His voice was equally sloppy. "I thought you said you needed sleep."

"...You're going to kill my father."

And at this he grinned. She really was a most entertaining person.

"Of course," Hisoka replied happily. They were partners in crime now, after all. "...and then you're going to kill me, my adorable fortune-teller-chan."

* * *

><p><strong>So I really have to thank the fantastic Sinikra, who made fanart for me! She is fabulous and I am so grateful that she spent the time and energy to do something so mind-blowingly amazing. Check out her blog on tumblr: hiro-ju-can-draw.<strong>

**This is a special, sort of, even if it's really really late. I wanted to try my hand at some light-heartedness for a change, just to take a break from the heavy plot chapters. As a result...OOCness, I guess. I mean, Kaede's not very experienced with alcohol while Hisoka is at that point in his life where he thinks getting drunk is fun. I think it was nice to write a Kaede that isn't always really serious and intense, and a Hisoka that is...well, flirtatious.**

**Remember that this story is pre-canon.**

**Updates will be unfortunately slow. Real life is taking its toll on me. I'm still in school and there's just too much life happening. I'm really sorry, guys. Please bear with me, this story will finish. We're almost there.**

**You guys should tell me what you think Kaede's super secret plan is! I left things fairly vague on purpose, because I've written Kaede as a very selfish kind of person and **I'm really interested in finding out what kind of plan you think she'll come up with.****

****Thank you all for being so patient with me.****

****-Colorless Butterfly****


	13. Chapter 13

**yup, i'm back. miss me?**

* * *

><p>Hisoka woke up feeling like something was wrong.<p>

There was an unnatural weight on his chest and a strangely familiar scent near his nose, and his left arm was numb. And when he shifted his fingers experimentally, he could feel cloth and a clearly defined _body?(!) _and _holy shit!_

Kaede was sleeping on top of him, and her breasts were decidedly pressed up against his side, and her leg had gotten tangled between his, and shit shit shit he was getting a hard-on, really fast. For a brief moment, Hisoka panicked. It had definitely, definitely been too long since he'd had a woman in his bed.

Kaede continued to sleep evenly, unaware of his predicament. Her head had fallen onto his chest, her hands clutching lightly at his shirt, and for the first time Hisoka was made very, very aware that she had somehow gained curves, no matter how small, instead of sharp angles and bones. He shifted lightly. Well, she hadn't filled out completely. He could feel the bones of her rib-cage pressed up against him, as well as her breasts and her inner thigh but he really shouldn't be thinking out that, because _yes _Kaede was most definitely female and _yes _she felt extremely feminine and _yes _he was getting distracted by the feeling of her body against his.

Not that he felt any need to change their position.

But he was sort of inconveniently sporting an erection now.

Her expression was unexpectedly peaceful when she was sleeping. For some reason, she always seemed to have a guarded expression on her face when she was awake, so Hisoka took the time to study her features and wonder about what it was that he found so fascinating about her.

He let a wry smirk appear on his face, wondering what kind of reaction Kaede would have if she found out that their sleeping positions had changed in the night. Maybe she would scream? That would be interesting.

.

.

As it turned out, Kaede did not scream.

She kneed him instead. Hard. In the groin.

This was partially due to her embarrassment, but mostly due to a reaction upon discovering his hard-on.

.

"Kaede-chaaan~" he whined somewhat painfully, leaning against the door to the bathroom. "Come out."

"No." Her voice was muffled behind the door, but the steel in her voice was enough to make him laugh anyway. Then he stopped laughing, because her knee had _hurt, damn it, _and when he laughed he had moved a little too much.

"What," he asked, his voice now a little strained, "don't be mad at me. We're partners in crime, remember?"

.

"You're awful," Kaede told him behind the door.

She had woken up with a splitting headache, and it had taken her a few seconds to recall where she was.

And then she had realized she was laying on top of a very, _very _muscular body (damn it!) and she could feel it when his chest rose up and down and one of his legs was between her legs and the hem of his shirt had rode up while he was sleeping to reveal one strip of extremely attractive skin and _the fucking bastard had a boner._

She had bolted awake, and scrambled off of him as fast as she could, heart pounding. She didn't know where to look, so she settled for pressing her hands to her forehead and closing her eyes, breathing deeply just to make sure she wasn't going to panic and do something stupid. Inwardly, she had harshly berated herself, because she had been _such an idiot._

Because she was rational and cold and logical, or at least she liked to think of herself that way, and rational people did not get drunk and tired and sleep in someone else's bed and then wake up _on top of them_.

The bed had shifted, and Kaede had frozen, her heartbeat racing. Her eyes opened cautiously.

"Good morning, fortune-teller-chan-_oof!_"

And that was when she had kneed him between the legs, causing Hisoka to _shrivel_ and roll over with a cry of pain. Then she had bolted to the bathroom, leading to their current predicament. Kaede fought the heat rushing to her face as she crossed her arms, fidgeting.

"...Go away," she huffed at the closed bathroom door. "I'm taking a shower."

.

.

.

"What?" she asked.

They were now sitting at his table, Kaede shifting uncomfortably. Hisoka had generously given her a shirt that was thankfully normal ("I save the special outfits for special occasions," he told her) but she had kept her pants, telling herself that she'd change once she returned.

"Nothing," Hisoka replied, but there was a teasing pout on his face, "I just feel a little cheated."

"...cheated?"

His pout turned into a smirk. "I really should have at least done something yesterday. It's been a while since I brought someone back here."

Her face instantly turned red. Remembering their highly compromising position this morning, she glanced away, feeling extremely uncomfortable. "Let's just not talk about it," she said, "we were both drunk. Aren't you hungover even a little bit?"

"Not at all," Hisoka said cheerfully, "I don't get hangovers." And she hated the way he said that, the way his lips curved into a smug smile as if he was telling her _yes, I am a superior being. _Part of her wanted to scoff.

"One would think you had a better alcohol tolerance," she muttered, the heat rising to her cheeks as she remembered him dragging her into his room the night before, tired but demanding and totally, totally drunk. Well, technically, she had been highly intoxicated, too, which was definitely why she had even succumbed to exhaustion in first place.

_Right. Keep making excuses._

"At any rate, are you busy today?" Hisoka asked her, bringing her out of her own (embarrassing) thoughts.

Kaede frowned, "No, I don't think so, although I'm a bit hungry. Why do you ask?"

"Great," Hisoka grinned, and stood up, cracking his neck as he did so. "Give me some time to get ready. It's a bit late for breakfast, but I'm sure you wouldn't object to an early lunch, right?"

.

_"My father wants to take down your company, and your employer wants you to kill my father. So what if we do both?"_

_"Both?" Hisoka asked, leaning forward as he played with the drink on the table. "That's an interesting suggestion, and quite honestly it seems a little contradictory, doesn't it? Besides, one would think you'd be careful when bargaining with your father's life..."_

_"But it's possible," Kaede replied unflinchingly, not an inch of feeling in her voice, "and I am willing to do both if it means I can get what I want."_

_Kaede did not consider herself a sophisticated woman. For the majority of her life, the things she wanted she stole and the people who listened to her she made bargains with. This time she was tired of playing things the way her father and Tabitha wanted her to play. This time, she would be cruel, the way she was when she didn't have anything to lose, because only the people who had nothing to lose had nothing to fear._

_"You want information?"_

_Kaede nodded, taking a sip from her drink. "And you want money. I think we should take advantage of the fact we're technically on different sides here, so we can both get what we want."_

_"What you're trying to say," Hisoka chastised, "is that you think I'm an obstacle in your way of getting your information, so you're trying to get me to work with you. How absolutely horrid, Kaede-chan."_

_"Of course," Kaede told him. "But you'll accept anyway, because in the end you're getting what you want too. You're avoiding your death.__"_

_He did not respond, and Kaede let it pass, because it was true. There was no way Hisoka could avoid his death cleanly, not unless he collaborated with her. After all, she was the only one who knew the details of his death, and even then there were some things that she could not see. _

_She took a deep breath, and folded her hands beneath her chin. "I need to find evidence that Mr. Richard is breaking the law. That's all I have to do. The moment I do, I can report to my father and get the answers I want."_

_"Are you basically telling me to wait until he tells you everything you want to know before I kill him?"_

_"You're too impatient," Kaede lifted her gaze to scowl at him. Her scowl deepened when she saw his smirk. "You know it's not that simple. Richard-san is unaware that his competitor has a daughter. Do you know how my Nen power works? It's like a system of equal trade. The more I know about someone, the better I will be able to see their future. If you want me to see the details of your death clearly, you'll have to tell me more about yourself. There's only so much I can do with just your name and face..."_

_._

She leaned against the wall, letting out a soft sigh. Only Hisoka, she thought, would take more time to get ready than a girl. "Hisoka, once I receive notice about the Nen remover, I'll call you. So until then, wait properly."

"But waiting is _bo-ring,_" Hisoka whined, his hands hurriedly gelling his hair into its familiar gravity-defying hairstyle. "No one likes waiting. Wouldn't it be easier if I killed everyone for you?"

"You're horrible, Hisoka."

He chuckled then, still putting the finishing touches on his makeup as he observed himself in the mirror. "Not as horrible as you, _Ka-e-de-chan~_"

God, she hated the way he said her name with such familiarity, the way he made it sound so playful. It made her feel uncomfortable; it made her nervous and her pulse quickened inconveniently.

She shifted against the wall, and folded her arms. "Anyways, I just need your agreement on this. You need to cooperate with me, remember? I'm trying to save your life."

"Don't stress yourself out trying to make sure everything goes according to plan, dearie," Hisoka walked out of the bathroom, running his long fingers over his now fully styled hair. "I like people who are unpredictable."

She flushed, and crossed her arms, biting the inside of her cheek. "Let's just go to lunch," she muttered.

.

.

Kaede slid into the car seat with a sense of trepidation.

"Hisoka," she asked him almost absent-mindedly, "how do you train?"

He turned to her with a slightly confused look. If the sudden change in subject fazed him, he didn't show it. "Train?"

She flushed slightly. "Your Nen," Kaede elaborated, "how do you train your Nen?"

When she saw his smirk, Kaede instantly regretted asking the question. Hisoka was a master at Nen; for all she knew he didn't even have to train. Hisoka's smirk, however, seemed to widen when he sensed her discomfort.

"Training, hmm..." Hisoka turned away, and a strangely nostalgic expression appeared on his face. "I suppose I train my Nen through fighting."

"Fighting?"

Fighting had occurred to Kaede before, but she had never truly considered the option. She wasn't a fighter; she had never received proper training. To her, training one's Nen through fighting was akin to trying to juggle flaming batons without preparation. She remembered the many black threads on Hisoka's hands, and a faint shiver ran down her spine. So Hisoka improved his Nen through fighting.

Hisoka must have found some sort of meditative quality in fighting, something throughout his many battles that caused his Nen proficiency to become what it was now. In a way, it would explain his recklessly wild and yet carefully calculated style of fighting. The way Hisoka fought was captivating. It had been developed over years and years of practice; it was something she could not replicate.

"Why do you ask?"

She was a little surprised by the question, but a complicated expression stole over her face anyway. "Nothing," Kaede said, "...just a little jealous, I guess. My Nen's not fit for battle."

Hisoka _hmmed, _and his gaze slid to meet hers contemplatively. "You know, I do believe it's been a while since I've had the pleasure of seeing you fight."

"I can't see why you'd be so interested. Fighting is neither as fun nor as thrilling as you make it out to be."

Kaede was sort of lying. There was no denying the adrenaline rush that came with fighting in the Arena, nor was it possible to deny the rush of endorphins that came after a victory. But she couldn't bring herself to fully enjoy it, the way Hisoka seemed to.

Hisoka caught her semi-untruth, and seemed amused by it. "Nonsense," he told her, "although now that I think of it, you've watched my matches plenty of times before, while I have unfortunately been absent for most of yours..."

_...dangerous. _She was treading in dangerous waters. Kaede narrowed her eyes. She could sense that Hisoka had gotten an idea.

"What is it, Hisoka?" she asked, her tone a little more guarded than it should have been.

Hisoka turned to her, smirking. He seemed unaware or uncaring of the fact that his attention was no longer on the road. "Let's have a spar."

"A _spar?_" The incredulity in her voice was evident.

"Right," Hisoka said affably, "something to get the blood boiling. It's been a while for me, anyway. I promise I'll take it easy on you."

_Spar?_

_Bullshit. _

Hisoka was capable of killing her in less than two seconds, whether she put up a fight or not. She'd seen him do it to other people before. His Nen was terrifyingly adaptable to all sorts of situations, and Hisoka himself could easily win in speed or strength. Besides, her Nen skill wasn't combat-based to begin with.

She swallowed, and scoffed. "What happened to the promise of an early lunch?"

"We can have a normal lunch," Hisoka replied easily.

He was doing it again. He was manipulating her into doing things his way, into doing what he wanted her to do. Kaede's grip tightened angrily.

"I won't use my Nen," Hisoka said.

Kaede must have gaped at him or something, because Hisoka chuckled at her reaction.

Kaede closed her mouth, flushing. "Hisoka, don't be ridiculous. Even if you don't use your Nen, we both know it'd be impossible for me to even hit you once."

"Then why don't we even it out further?" Hisoka suggested, "You'll already be able to use your Nen and I won't. If you manage to hit me once, you win, and if you'll only lose if you forfeit."

_You're missing the goddamn point! _She snarled in her head, but made a last ditch effort anyway. "Wouldn't that be boring for you? You'd have so many handicaps that it wouldn't be interesting at all."

The corner of Hisoka's mouth quirked, as if he knew he had won. "I think you're underestimating yourself, darling."

.

.

.

_"Hisoka," _Kaede breathed. "This is such a horrible place to have a spar."

She still wasn't quite sure why she had agreed in first place.

They had driven to the outskirts of the city, where the streets had turned into gravel roads and eventually melded into forest. Kaede looked around at the thick covering of trees around them. She couldn't even see the Celestial Tower from here.

"At least no one will interrupt us, right?"

That was true. She couldn't imagine anyone finding them in such a secluded area so far removed from the city.

Kaede inhaled deeply.

"_Ha!_"

Her Nen exploded, sending a ripple through the trees. Several leaves fluttered to the ground due to the disturbance, and she barely suppressed a shiver. Her _Nen _flowed through her veins and sent goosebumps prickling across her skin, spreading like fog across her skin. She closed her eyes.

In the end, it was truly her own Nen that she felt most comfortable in. It was in no way threatening; it was clear and smooth and held a somewhat brittle quality, as if it could snap like thin glass and become jagged and frightening in moments. Kaede liked the way it responded to her, the way it folded around her and shifted in accordance to the way she wanted it.

She faced Hisoka, allowing herself (just once) to revel in the feeling of her Nen. Under the shadow of the trees within the forest, the leaves overhead cast strange patterns over his porcelain face, and what feeble sunlight that filtered through the treetops glinted off of his styled hair.

"Ready when you are," Hisoka said simply.

Kaede lunged.

.

.

.

"Ha...ha...ha..."

Kaede brushed the hair out of her eyes, breathing hard.

.

.

Hisoka was sort of impressed.

He had looked forward to seeing Kaede in action for the first time in a while. After all, it had once been said that you could tell a person's strength simply by observing how they _moved. _Judging from the improvement in her Nen and the way her movements had gained a slightly more graceful edge to them, he had assumed that she had made good use of the few months that he hadn't seen her.

But...

He dodged a vicious slap, and then twisted awkwardly to avoided a well-timed kick. Pivoting, he threw a light punch at her side, and was curious when she forcefully caught hold of his wristguard instead. With something akin to a grunt, Hisoka hastily shifted weight to pick up his foot just in time so that Kaede's Nen-enhanced foot barely missed his. Her foot slammed into the dirt, and the ground cracked under its weight.

"Wow," he commented, quickly extracting himself. "I don't think I've ever had anyone fight me like this, Kaede-chan."

Which was true. He had, never, ever been subject to such intensely under-handed ways of fighting. To him, it was extremely interesting, while not exactly stressful.

_Too slow. _Her movements were too slow; she was too easy to read. Less than being unable to follow her movements, Hisoka felt as if he was confronting a different style of fighting entirely.

Not to underestimate Kaede or anything. Hisoka ducked to avoid a fast punch and sidestepped a hard shove. He whipped out his leg and kneed Kaede hard in the stomach, sending her stumbling backwards.

_Ahh, it was really really unfair._

How long had it been since he'd seen Kaede? Three months? Four months?

Four months, and already her control over her Nen had become absolutely magnificent. The moment he hit her stomach, she had concentrated her nen on her stomach to lessen the blow. She focused different percentages of Nen on different areas of her body with such ease that Hisoka would have thought she had been trained since birth, had he known better. This is what it was like to be born with a natural capability for Nen.

For the first time in a while, Hisoka felt a twinge of envy. She really, really didn't understand how lucky she was.

A little bit of Nen usage was okay, right?

After all, Kaede was the type of person who said she would do one thing but end up doing another. She was easily influenced by her emotions, but attacked every one of her problems with an intensity that Hisoka found extremely fascinating. If he used a bit of Nen now, surely she would take it in stride.

Moreover, Kaede was someone who constantly strived for improvement. Hisoka smiled at her, his eyes squeezing together. If he gave her a chance to improve...she would take it without hesitation, right?

Right.

.

"You're too slow," he told her. "You won't be able to hit me unless you're serious, Kaede-chan."

"I _am _serious!" Kaede huffed, her voice laced with frustration. In the end, it really wasn't enough. Hisoka was simply faster and stronger, despite his handicaps.

She felt his Nen rather than saw it; it was like the feeling of a cold mist trailing down her spine, and the hairs on the back her neck stood up.

"Are you?" Hisoka asked her.

He was breaking the rules. He wasn't supposed to use his Nen. That was just too unfair. So far, she hadn't even been able to come close to hitting him even once, so Kaede was confused as to why his aura had come to life like that.

Because of course she was being serious about this spar. She was trying really, really hard to hit him. It just wasn't working.

But she wasn't going to get anywhere at this rate, was she?

"You're not going to win unless you come at me seriously, Kaede."

_...fight...seriously?_

Her Nen wavered.

She remembered the smell of alcohol, of dirty streets and grimy hands and a cold rough wall against her back, the feeling of emptiness in her stomach and the dizziness of hunger.

The feeling of sharp scissors in her pocket, of coins sliding through her fingers, of rough palms and soft hands and black threads unraveling around her hands, of dark alleyways and suspicion coiled in her stomach, of a smiling woman with sunken in cheekbones and a white hallway where she ran.

She remembered the panic accompanied by grasping fingers, of a drunk man yanking at her arm and a fire, a fire and the smell of burning bodies and the peace that should have been there but was not.

_Are you...really serious?_

_Ahhh, _Kaede thought, with a painful expression crossing her face, _I hate you._

_._

Hisoka felt Kaede's Nen darken, take on an edge of malevolence.

His grin widened.

"Perfect," he said.

"No..." Kaede told him, features hardened. "You broke the rules. You used your Nen. Fight me properly too."

Damn, he was sort of getting hard again.

"Sure," he said, a wild grin spreading across his face, "but I hope you're prepared, fortune-teller-chan...because I don't like holding back."

.

.

.

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

"Ugh..." Kaede blinked up at the forest canopy, the breath knocked out of her.

_What...just happened?_

Hisoka had rushed her, slamming his palm into her ribcage and sending her crashing into a bush within seconds. She had been too stunned to react, and therefore wasn't able to protect herself fully with Nen. The next time he attacked, she had been slightly more prepared, gathering her Nen into a shield around her body.

Just as before, with inhuman speed, he had closed the distance between them. Kaede swallowed down panic, and raised her fists.

As if she were simply a twig, Hisoka had simply grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward,

She had barely been able to react, and Hisoka had clipped her shoulder instead of her stomach with a painfully strong punch. She couldn't even respond properly against the barrage of attacks he was unleashing on her. Kaede struggled to evade his fast punches, deflecting as many as she could.

It was sort of frightening. She gathered her Nen in her feet and jumped, vaulting over Hisoka just in time to avoid a sharp kick and an aggressive punch. She pivoted quickly, Nen shifting upwards to her forearms to block a an elbow jab to her head and then her stomach in quick succession. She darted backwards, but he followed easily, launching flurry after flurry of blows.

Thank god the rule of no weapons still stood. Kaede wasn't sure how she would deal with Hisoka being able to use his cards like the magician normally did.

She ducked, feeling his arm swing past her head. In such close quarters, there was no way to retreat. Kaede brought up her knee forcefully, but Hisoka simply sidestepped and slammed a foot into her side.

"Ugh!" Kaede let out a cry of pain at the impact. Without her Nen protecting her, she was fairly certain she would have broken a rib or two.

Their brutal exchange must have taken less than two minutes; to her, it felt like an eternity. Already she was panting from exertion, brain going haywire, every muscle tensed and ready for the next attack. What pissed her off was that he was still going easy on her. He had yet to actually use Nen to attack her, and instead only kept himself surrounded in it like a shield.

She had seen him use his Nen before. It had elastic-like properties, and somehow he manipulated his Nen like it was gum, expanding and contracting with ease.

_She still had so far to go._

Kaede braced herself anyway and continued to fight without hesitation.

Her Nen rushed to her eyes; she saw too late the strand of Nen Hisoka had attached to her shoulder. The next thing she knew, she had been flung into the sky, and thrown into the ground. She let out a surprised cry, the breath knocked out of her.

So this was Hisoka's Nen power. Kaede struggled to get up, wiping dirt off of her cheek, panting. Adrenaline coursed through her body like wildfire; her muscles burned.

She couldn't go up against this type of Nen. Her Hatsu wasn't an offensive type at all.

_Ah, shit._ Her eyes glowed with Gyo, and identified the strands of Hisoka's Nen that were still stuck to her like glue. One of her right shoulder. One on her left arm. One on her ribcage.

_Shit! _She didn't know how to get them off. Across the clearing, Hisoka lifted his hand, and pulled.

It was a sickening feeling. She was being tugged forward with immense strength, and Kaede gritted her teeth as she struggled to stay firmly on the ground. She felt as if she had no control over her own body. With a frustrated cry, she tumbled forward, yanked towards Hisoka.

Kaede took a deep breath as she was suddenly airborne, ground shifting to sky and sky shifting into forest floor.

She saw Hisoka's outstretched fist, saw that he was pulling her with one hand and preparing to nail her in the stomach with the other. Limbs flailing, she gritted her teeth, and shifted her Nen to her stomach and her hands. Panic flared through her system. A punch like that was probably enough to cause internal damage, if not shatter a few bones.

Hisoka was stronger than her. But he must have been supremely confident in his strength to think he would be able to punch her away even if her entire weight was being yanked towards him.

A little part of her was extremely, extremely angry.

..._Bastard! _

Kaede used every ounce of strength she had in her body to tuck her flailing limbs in and twist at the last moment. With tremendous effort, she shoved Hisoka's fist away with her Nen-enhanced hands. Unable to stop her momentum, she instead slammed into Hisoka with such force that she knocked him over onto the hard forest floor.

Her head was spinning, and her muscles burned unbearably with exertion.

But she had managed to knock Hisoka over.

Kaede heaved painful gasps of air as she sat up, grabbed Hisoka's shirt, and punched his face as hard as she could.

.

She was a total mess. Her entire body was covered in sweat, and Kaede felt so exhausted she wasn't sure if she could even think properly anymore. It took every ounce her her concentration not to simply collapse. Her hands were still fisted in Hisoka's shirt, and she was breathing hard.

Hisoka seemed a little dazed after her punch, and she could feel his Nen receding.

Flushing, Kaede realized what kind of position they were in, and she remembered the disaster in the morning all too well. Her Nen ebbed away as well, so she was left panting and breathless, unable to control to spikes of adrenaline still coursing through her body.

Compared to the almost constant movement that had been their spar, the sudden stillness made her panic. She wasn't sure what to do now.

Hisoka's reddish-gold eyes slid toward her, and a faint smirk appeared on his face as he took in her face. He was breathing hard as well, and Kaede could feel his heart pounding beneath her hands, his warmth spilling through his clothes. Hisoka rubbed at his jaw, looking thoughtful despite the faint smile on his face.

"That was a good punch," he said, his eyes dropping to her lips, "but is being on top of me going to be a regular occurrence, Kaede-chan?"

_Shit shit shit _her heart was pounding and when one of his hands crawled through her hair, pulling her closer, Kaede realized that Hisoka was going to kiss her, that his eyes had darkened and all she could do was tighten her fingers against his shirt and feel his pulse beneath her fingers, quick and warm and dangerous and _alive _and -

He stopped.

Kaede's breathing hitched.

With delicate restraint, his hand slipped from her hair, while his other hand reached for her own hand, prying her fingers loose from his shirt. Kaede sat up slowly, heart still racing, confused.

A faint smirk was still on Hisoka's face. Very, very slowly, he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckle of her pinky. She could feel his lips curve, the heat of his breath against her skin, and couldn't stop the goosebumps from appearing on her arms.

The wind rustled through the trees.

"What color is it now?"

_So cruel._

He was so, so cruel.

A shroud of Nen engulfed her as her gaze dropped to her pinky, to his pinky, a look of helplessness on her face as she stared at the tightly coiled thread that linked her to Hisoka.

_It used to be white._

Hisoka sat up too, never letting go of her hand, and tugged her closer when she tried to pull away.

"What color is it now?" he repeated, and Kaede couldn't look at him, because she was too dizzy from that almost-kiss and too frightened of what she would see in his eyes.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A few days later, Kaede received a voicemail on her phone.

"_We found who you were looking for,_" it said. "_Meet me this Saturday afternoon, 3 o'clock. __He's an amateur Nen remover, but sources say he is fairly reliable. His name is Abengane. Come prepared."_

* * *

><p><strong>I don't even know what to say. <strong>

**I'm sort of regretting starting this story, hahaha...I mean, I'm probably going to change this fic's rating to M if I haven't already, and I guarantee you that when I started this fic my young preteen self did NOT see the story taking on romance in this way, so I feel like the writing's definitely a bit disjointed.**

**But eh. I will definitely definitely finish this story, no matter how disconnected or crappy it is. This is one of those stories that constantly will improve as my own writing improves. It won't have the most seamless plot or the most consistent writing, but it will be mine and I will finish it no matter how long it takes.**

**Anyways. In case you missed it, shit just hit the fan.**

**Really gotta thank LiahFaile for this chapter. She's the best. Love you babe.**

**Please leave a review! I love it when I hear what you guys think.**

**Thanks,**

**-ColorlessButterfly**


	14. Chapter 14

**Things never go according to plan with Hisoka in the mix.**

* * *

><p>.<p>

The colorless threads were there again.

They were blocking her vision. She couldn't see past them, but she could tell that this was not her Nen, this _absolutely could not be her Nen _because the feeling it gave her made her too sick. She felt nauseous just looking at them with her Nen in her eyes, and she hated how they covered the back of her hands and her knuckles as if her hands were wrapped in spiderweb-like gloves.

Her fingers were still sparse and bare, with only a few threads trailing off every now and then. Kaede's gaze flicked to her pinky, and quickly glanced away, disturbed. She could _feel _Hisoka on the other end of that string, smirking, and tightened her fists.

Damn it.

She wasn't weak enough to let a stupid thread derail her plans. She _would not _let a stupid thread, no matter which color, change her plans in any way.

Kaede took a look at herself in the reflection of the building's glass door, green eyes narrowed, clutching a folder with one thin hand and reaching for the door handle with the other. Her eyes darted to the clock inside the building. She was ten minutes early, but that was okay. Hisoka was here too; she could tell by the way the thread on her pinky stretched taut, reaching into the building.

She could feel the weight of her phone in her pocket. Once again, she glanced down at her hand, grasping the handle.

_Red is for destiny. _Everyone knew the story about the red thread of fate, and how it supposedly connected two lovers that were destined for eternity. Kaede swung open the door.

_Red...huh? _she thought, scoffing softly. Her breaths made puffs of water vapor in the chilly air. Her Nen receded, so all she was looking at were her own, thread-free hands, thin and bony.

_If I remember correctly..._

_._

_._

_._

_...red is also the color of war._

.

.

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.

_"Fuck you," Kaede said. There was half-panic, half-pain in her voice, and it came out heavy and breathless._

_She rolled off of Hisoka, snatching her hand free from his grasp. Her other hand clamped around her mouth, and she held her breath, because she knew that if she took in air her breaths would be shaky and out-of-control and she wouldn't give Hisoka the pleasure of knowing how much he'd affected her. Her knuckles tingled where he had kissed them, so she held it tightly to her chest, shoulders tense, her nails digging into her palm._

_She didn't know what kind of expression was on her face, only that her features were twisted into a mixture of hurt and confusion and terror. __She scrambled to her feet, and backed away from him, hating how her muscles trembled against her will._

_Hisoka got to his feet as well, stretching as if he were a cat. With terrifying laziness, he turned to her, one hand on his hip._

_She exhaled harshly, her hand slipping from her mouth. "Fuck you," Kaede repeated herself, and felt her voice tremble with desperation, and hated the way she sounded so out of breath. She sucked in air, felt it burn her lungs._

_He stepped forward, and she turned away, but then his hand shot out and grasped at her shirt - his shirt - and yanked her back toward him. Kaede panicked. She twisted herself free, and Hisoka took the opportunity to grab at her wrist again._

_God, what was it with him and wrists?_

_"I only asked you a simple question, Kaede," Hisoka said._

_She tried to drag her hand free, but his fingers only tightened against her wrist. A flutter of fear appeared in Kaede's stomach when she noticed how his eyes darkened when she tried to shake him off, the way his fingers readjusted their grip. He liked it when she struggled._

_A horrible, horrible feeling was crushing her chest. "I can't," Kaede told him, helplessly. "You don't understand."_

_And he didn't. He didn't understand. There was no way anyone could understand the idea of being tied down to something - to the idea of fate, or love, or destiny, or anything, not when they never experienced anything of the sort. Kaede had no important threads on her fingers, and it had been that way for as long as she could remember. She had never been attached to something, because her hands had been_ bare, _and because there was nothing to be attached to she had been free._

_She'd never felt much attachment to anything. __Even when she had run away from home._

_To her, strings were _shackles. _They were commitments; promises; things that trapped her. There is no describing the terror of someone who is abruptly forced into handcuffs they've never experienced before._

_The grip on her wrist tightened, painfully. Hisoka waved his hand almost casually, and a card appeared between his fingers, and scrutinized her carefully, as if he wasn't quite sure what she was thinking. Kaede didn't need Gyo to know that the card was Shu-enhanced, and that it was razor-sharp._

.

.

.

When she was finally called into the office, she was surprised to find another figure sitting in the room. He was a boy that couldn't have been much younger than herself, dark-skinned, wearing a thick robe that covered his body and feet. She turned to Mr. Richards quizzically.

"This is Abengane," Mr. Richards gestured to the boy, a faint smile on his face, "don't be fooled by his appearance. We had a really hard time finding him."

The boy turned to her with a slight nod. "Are you the lady I have to remove Nen from?"

A faint smile appeared on Kaede's face.

"...I'm a little surprised," she said, "I didn't think you'd be so young." Only a teenager, and already a Nen remover. She wondered how that could have happened - according to Hisoka, the removal of Nen was by far the most difficult kind of Hatsu to attain. It was exceedingly rare that a Hatsu capable of exorcising Nen would manifest. Not many people had a fully developed Hatsu when they were young.

This boy, however...she could tell. He certainly knew Nen.

"I've fulfilled my part of the bargain, Yasukawa-san," Mr. Richards said from the side of the room. "I've given you what you asked for. Now it's your turn. Abengane, if you would please step out of the room?"

Abengane stood from the chair, nodding curtly. Kaede watched him leave with faint amusement.

"Did you have to bribe him?" she asked when the door clicked shut, a wry smile on her face.

Mr Richards waved a hand dismissively, "it was an insignificant sum of money, but enough to keep him cooperating for the moment."

So even kids these days were getting pulled into the politics of business. Kaede turned to Mr. Richards with a shrug, and raised the folder she had been holding. "I've told you about my ability before. The more you tell me about a topic, the more information I'll be able to tell you."

"You told me you could predict the economy. Stocks and prices, and expanding enterprises alike."

"Right," she sat down across from Mr. Richards, and motioned for him to give her his hand, "but only if you tell me more about your company."

The past for the future. The more information Kaede knew about something or someone's past, the more she could foresee. It was an equal exchange, a limitation she had placed on her Nen in order to make it clearer and easier for her to understand.

The look on Mr. Richards face was clearly disgruntled, but he conceded and gave her his left hand anyway. "I do not feel comfortable divulging information about my company to a third party. Is there-"

"I guarantee confidentiality," Kaede lied smoothly, green eyes narrowing. "Have no fear. This is the only way to give you exact information."

She wasn't _really _lying. According to the vows she had placed on her Nen, the more information Mr. Richard gave her about his company's stocks, the better and more precise she'd be able to predict his company's stocks.

She just didn't tell him that this was how she'd be able to get information about his illegal dealings, and that her phone was currently in her pocket recording their entire conversation.

.

.

_"I could kill you right now," Hisoka told her simply._

_Her breathing hitched, and n__oiseless panic welled inside her chest. For a moment, she was frozen in fear, too terrified of the deadly card to move. He was right. Their spar had certainly proved that he was more than capable of killing her. After all, he had killed before without a thought, and could kill again._

_Fuck him. He had tried to kiss her - _kiss her - _and now he was threatening to kill her._

_Kaede let out a soft exhale through gritted teeth._

_"You're not going to kill me," she said, and turned to face Hisoka fully. Her expression was pained._

_Hisoka tilted his head slightly, the card flipping between his fingers._

_"You_ can't_ kill me," she said. "The string isn't black. I don't know what kind of game you're playing, Hisoka, but I'm not going to be fucked over just so you can get some satisfaction out of it. I'm not going to play this game with you, damn it." She felt frighteningly out of control. She wasn't sure why she was feeling so panicked right now, and couldn't decide if it was because Hisoka had almost kissed her but hadn't, or because he'd somehow read her mind and asked her what kind of thread connected the two of them now._

_She clenched her hands into fists. Hisoka's hands shifted, and his fingers fluttered unsettlingly over her skin. His grip on her wrist loosened, but not enough for her to pull away._

_"...So much conviction," Hisoka drawled, his thumb rubbing slow circles on the inside of her wrist, seeking out the veins that pulsed just below the surface. "You have so much conviction in your strings. You can't even consider the option that you might be wrong. What if I really were to kill you, right now? What if I told myself to kill you? What if I believed with _every ounce of my being_ that I am going to kill you, right now? Right here?"_

_Kaede shivered at the feeling of his rough thumb pressing into her pulse point, and prayed that he wouldn't be able to feel the way that her heartbeat stuttered. She swallowed thickly as Hisoka tapped the card lightly against the bottom of her chin. She could feel its deadly sharpness, and the unveiled threat that it contained. One slice, and she could die._

_"Like this?" Hisoka said, silkily dangerous. His voice had dropped to a low, dark whisper, something that sent heat trailing down Kaede's spine and ice through her stomach. "I could slice your neck right now. But first I'd dig it into your skin, watch the blood well and drip down your neck. I'd watch you panic, and when you try to escape, I'd slice your windpipe through and that'll be the end of it. It'd be_ so easy. _And if you really have such faith in your strings, I'll prove fate wrong and I'll kill you right now, because I can kill you, and _I'll kill you,_ right now -_"

_She couldn't help it. White fear crashed through her system, because for an instant Kaede believed Hisoka, believed his every word, and that he would kill her, because if there was anyone who could defy fate it would be Hisoka. She yanked her hand out of his grasp, ignoring the burning pain as his hand was dragged roughly away from her wrist. Her breaths spilled out of her, uncontrolled._

_"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she snarled, frustration lacing her voice with something sick and angry. "I told you already. I'm not going to play some game with you, Hisoka. I know fate can be changed. That's what we're trying to do; make sure you don't die. The color of the thread between us doesn't matter if you're going to die, okay? Don't - don't -" She broke off, unable to finish her sentence._

_"What? Kiss you?" And then Hisoka was there again, inside her personal space, making her uneasy. His eyes were burning amber. "Are you upset that I didn't kiss you, Kaede-chan?"_

_She shoved him, hard. Kaede inhaled sharply, felt the wind burning in her lungs._

_She knew she was overreacting. She knew that Hisoka was amused at her reactions, and that every hint of frustration in her voice only added to his satisfaction, but it was __just too easy __to let him irritate her. Kaede__ took a deep breath, composing herself. Then another. Then another. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she forced her muscles to relax._

_Slowly. Slowly. _

_Her breaths evened out, and the silence between them hung heavy and unresolved. Kaede felt the adrenaline ebb away, only to be replaced by intense fatigue. _

_Slowly. Kaede lifted her head. She exhaled evenly._

_"...you win, Hisoka." she said, wearily. "I'm done with this, okay? I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm not going to play."_

_Hisoka smirked. He leaned forward so that his lips brushed against his ears, and Kaede clenched her jaw, forcing herself to stay still. Hisoka noticed the way her neck tensed, and chuckled, low in her ear, __"Does this mean lunch is still on?"_

.

.

It had been easy. Kaede slipped a hand casually into her pocket once she was facing away from the desk, tapping the button that stopped the recording, and made sure that Mr. Richards was none the wiser.

"Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Richards," she turned, and smiled faintly. "Your red-haired mercenary won't go down without a fight. I know you will poison his tea, and then surround the room in hopes of surprising him with an ambush. But honestly, if you really wanted to get rid of him..." she pulled a small bag from her purse, and slid it across the table.

"A man might make his skin strong enough to withstand bullets," Kaede said, "but no one can protect their lungs. Pop this into the lit candle on your desk, and don't breathe it in."

"Poisoning the air?" Mr Richards said, folding his arms haughtily. "He has yet to finish his job. We need him until then, Yasukawa-san."

Kaede simply shrugged, and smiled, her lips curving. "It doesn't matter, does it? You have no guarantee that he won't blab about your misdeeds to anyone, so you'll eventually try to tie your loose end up. Use it whenever and however you want. It has been a _pleasure_ working with you, Mr. Richards."

She had turned around, and had made her way to the door when she heard chuckling behind her.

"Hisoka...how well do you know him personally?"

She paused.

"I'm sorry?" Kaede asked, turning to face Mr. Richards.

"I'm simply wondering why you'd go so far to ensure his death. Is it a personal vendetta, maybe, or something else? It's certainly odd that you'd want to kill him so much."

Silence. Her gaze dropped down to her fingers.

_"You can't kill me. The string isn't black."_

A black string went both ways. Neither of them could kill the other, simply due to the absence of a black string of death.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Richards," Kaede said, quietly. "I'm not going to kill him. You are."

.

.

Kaede quickly transferred the recording of their conversation to an email, and sent it to her father's office. _That's one thing down. _Her Nen activated for just a flicker of a second, and she glanced down at the spider-gauze that crisscrossed over her palms, glowing with foreign Nen. All that was left was to get rid of those confusing translucent threads.

"We can't do this inside," Abengane said, standing up when he saw her. "I can't remove Nen unless I'm in nature. And I have a few questions to ask you before I can remove any Nen."

"Okay," Kaede said, placing her phone back in her pocket, "lead the way, I suppose."

"First of all, my Nen removal skills are very weak. I need several requirements to be fulfilled before we can attempt exorcising Nen from you, and I can't guarantee that I'll be able to remove it. If the person who placed the Nen curse on you is dead, then there is no way I can remove it."

"I don't know anything about this foreign Nen. All I know that it is not mine and that I can't remove it by myself," Kaede narrowed her eyes, splaying her fingers out. She was sure that Abengane could see the foreign Nen; perhaps not as threads, the way she saw them, but certainly he could feel the contrasting Nen that was present within her.

"I think it's blocking my memories," she confessed. "I...my memories of my childhood are vague and confusing at best. I think these threads are hiding something."

Abengane nodded, but his brows had creased into a frown. "Then I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to remove it successfully."

"That's fine," Kaede said lightly, glancing at the woods they were entering. It would make sense that a Nen exorcist would require many conditions to be met. All of a sudden, she was met with a wave of apprehension. "You'll get paid anyway. I just want to get rid of it, and a Nen exorcist seemed like the best option."

"My Nen draws on the power of the earth and the living plants around me. I'm a shaman of sorts," Abengane lead her into the middle of a clearing, where he had placed a pile of sticks. "Unfortunately, my Nen power is still in development. I can remove small curses fairly easily, but depending on the size of the fire I might not be able to."

"You lighting a fire?" Kaede asked, raising her eyebrows.

Abengane gave her a wry smile, and half-shrugged. "Nen exorcism requires many requirements, Yasukawa-san. Shall we start?"

.

.

_It had taken her far too long to regain control of her emotions. Kaede sat in silence throughout their lunch, picking at her food._

_She took a deep breath, eyes fluttering closed slightly before opening again. Somehow, Hisoka was capable of eating with a completely carefree air, the expression on his face clearly indicating he was completely fine with the heavy silence between the two._

_She had overreacted. Kaede knew that; but it didn't make her feel any better. Only Hisoka could push her that far. Somehow, he knew exactly which buttons to press._

_If only he wasn't such an arrogant prick._

_She put down her fork. Hisoka's eyes flickered to her action, and she kept his attention by carefully releasing her Nen, letting her aura flow around her._

_"...__You can see it too, can't you?" Kaede asked Hisoka, quietly. Her voice was subdued, but it was even again, and she kept her expression carefully schooled into a mask that showed no expression. "Even if you can't see the strings, you should be able to see the curse that's been put on me."_

_Hisoka watched her with narrow eyes, but his gaze flicked down to her hand. "It's concealed with 'In'," Hisoka told her, "but I see it. It's not malevolent or anything, although, so I wouldn't call it a curse. It's very strange, though. And it's old. It's been on you for a while."_

_"I know," Kaede said grimly. "But I want to get rid of it. That's why I asked Mr. Richards to find a Nen remover. He hasn't contacted me yet, but when he does, I'll tell you."_

_Hisoka watched her, something akin to dissatisfaction in his expression. Kaede kept her voice stone cold. She'd panicked earlier, letting her frustration at Hisoka push her to reveal a side of her she'd always been uncomfortable with, but she wouldn't make the same mistake twice._

_Hisoka seemed to understand, so he simply shrugged, but gave her one of his half smiles anyway._

_Kaede exhaled softly. Not again, she told herself. She wouldn't let herself panic, no matter what Hisoka did. No matter what anyone did._

.

.

His Nen was sort of beautiful, if she looked at it closely. It was warm and smooth, like honeyed tea, and it gave her a sense of security. It was absolutely nothing like Hisoka's. In her pocket, her phone buzzed.

Abengane pulled out a wooden effigy. He closed his eyes, and began chanting something. Kaede didn't understand his words, but she watched his Nen with interest as it traveled from his body to the wooden doll.

Then, after wrapping a wreath made of leaves around the effigy's neck, he tossed it into the fire.

"Give me your hands," he said to her, and Kaede stepped forward quickly, extending her hands out to him. The fire crackled, and its flames flared higher. For a moment, she almost remarked on the irony of the situation. Usually, she was the one who asked for someone to show her their hands.

_He's a Conjurer, _Kaede realized as Abengane's Nen began to materialize. It was a small, ugly creature, and it curled itself around her hands.

The ugly creature was an odd color - dark purple, wriggling over her hands as if it were a worm. Surprised, Kaede jerked her hands instinctively, but it remained latched on. She could feel its weight, however, and the feeling of its body slithering over her fingers sent faint shudders down her spine. The creature opened its jaw to reveal a gaping, toothless mouth.

She could not have known what was coming next.

Her eyes glowed bright with Nen as they flicked down to her hands. The creature - was - ?

_Eating the foreign threads._

_It's eating the foreign Nen on my hands away._

Like a drum. Her heart was pounding in her ears, like a drum. Goosebumps appeared on her arm despite the heat from the fire, and Kaede was suddenly bathed in cold sweat, her breaths harshening.

The fire burned strange shadows into her green eyes. Swallowing, Kaede's eyes fluttered closed, and something in her brain _shifted._

.

.

_"Have you wondered about what would happen if your Nen curse was removed?" Hisoka asked her._

_Of course she had. Kaede nodded imperceptibly, pressing her lips into a thin line before answering. "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's blocking some of my childhood memories. I'm not sure why, though."_

_"Aren't you worried?" Hisoka turned to her, one eyebrow quirking slightly. "Aren't you scared of what you'll find? For all you know, you could regret it."_

_She had considered that possibility as well. Kaede simply let a small smile appear on her face, and shook her head. "I would rather regret knowing than not know."_

_And it was true. But there was still that seed of doubt inside of her, something that worried her more than she would admit. Trying to remove the colorless threads on her hands was a leap of faith, out of sheer desperation. There was no guarantee of a safety net. __  
><em>

.

_._

And breathe.

_._

_._

_**Flash.**_

_._

_._

_._

"...what was that?" Her lips moved imperceptibly. Her voice was a whisper.

Abengane was chanting, and didn't hear her. The heat of the fire brushed against her skin. It was a decent-sized fire, and the smoke spiraled dangerously into the air. Her eyes fluttered closed. She breathed.

.

.

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_Bare feet against cold tiles. A hallway. A hospital._

.

_"Just a stupid kid, huh?"_

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.

She hissed in pain. Her eyebrows creased, and Kaede pressed her palm against her forehead, fingers twisting into her bangs. She kneeled to the ground, her free hand bracing against the forest floor for support.

What was going on? She closed her eyes, but not before glancing at the Nen creature chewing patiently at her hands. The edges of panic grew in her stomach.

"Is something wrong?" Abengane asked her. He had taken a break from chanting, and was now turned to Kaede, a concerned frown on his face.

"No," Kaede breathed. "It's just -"

.

_She was lost, and she was panicking. Where was her mother?__._

_._

"- flashes," Kaede gasped, wincing, her palm pressing harder against her head. "Flashes. Of something. Memories. I don't know."

.

_"Relax," someone told her, and cold fingers pressed against her forehead. "You're safe here."_

_._

"Ugh," she sucked in air, eyes squeezed shut. "I can't. I don't get it - _ugh!_"

"My exorcisms don't take long," Abengane told her, his voice worried. "Just - I don't know what's happening, but - "

.

_Gray smoke, drifting from her body into the air. Come back to me, she thought. She was crying._

_Her body was shrouded in steam, and she felt drained and feverish. Come back, she thought, panicking, come back, come back._

_._

"- my Nen creature will finish in a few minutes, and then your curse should be fully removed -"

.

_A hallway. A door._

_There was an evil,** evil **__feeling_._ It was suffocating her, choking her. She felt like she was going to die. Her limbs had lost all of their strength, and she cowered in fear, shaking under the assault._

_She heard footsteps behind her, but she was too terrified to move. _

_"...What's this, an intruder? I told you not to let anyone pass."_

.

"- so whatever you're experiencing now, is probably the effects of having your Nen curse exorcised -"

.

_"Oh my god, it's a little girl! What is she doing here?"_

_._

And then she was _drowning, _disappearing into a sea and plunging deep underwater, and a ghostly pain blossomed at the base of her head.

.

**_Flash._**

_She was running down a white hallway._

_Barefoot. The tiles were cold against her feet. The white hallway disoriented her, frightened her. __Hospital. She was in a hospital._

_The silly fear of a child who is left alone and sees no one she recognizes gripped her tightly; it wound itself around her chest and squeezed. Kaede slowed down. She started to cry. __Where was her mother? She wanted to find her mother._

_._

_._

_**Flash.**_

_"...thought I told you not to let anyone pass."_

_Something twisted in the air; it shifted and warped and all of a sudden Kaede could barely breathe, because it felt as if every limb had lost its strength and her body was draining away. The feeling was cold and terrifying, and she found herself completely frozen in fear._

_._

_._

Kaede's breath stilled.

Presence is the way someone holds themselves; their expression; the way they move and the words they say. There is no feeling a presence, only observing one. The only time Kaede had ever truly _felt _an _aura _was when that aura had been _Nen._

And just now, in whatever vision that had appeared in her brain, memory or not, that was -

- that was _Nen, _wasn't it?

_._

_._

**_Flash._**

_Footsteps behind her, harsh and loud against the tiled floor. She was so scared she couldn't move, even if she had wanted to. She couldn't turn around._

_"Just a stupid kid, huh?"_

_Just a stupid kid. Just a stupid kid. Just a stupid kid._

_The world seemed to spin. Something painful was jabbing at her body from every direction, and Kaede found that she was crying, the world blurring around her._

_A harsh blow to the back of her head, almost careless in its execution but oh, so painful, and her head was bursting into fire and she was dying, dying, dying, and Kaede had never thought black could be such a relieving sensation._

_._

_._

.

.

("_Aren't you worried? Aren't you scared of what you'll find?"_)

("Oh my god," she breathed, her limbs trembling, her voice trembling, because all of a sudden the world had tilted onto its head. "Oh my god, my Nen. My _Nen._")

.

.

.

* * *

><p><strong>so to recap for everyone who's been confused:<strong>

**Kaede's been given a mission by her father and stepmother in exchange for the name of the assassin who killed her friends: drag out proof that a competing business CEO, Mr. Richards, is dealing illegally with the mafia. She agrees, but upon reading Hisoka's future realizes that at the same time, he has been somehow hired by Mr. Richards to kill her father, and that Mr. Richards plans on having Hisoka killed. Confused? It's okay. I wasn't quite thinking clearly when I made this up.**

**Meanwhile, Kaede has her own agenda. She makes a deal with Mr. Richards by using her fortune-telling Nen as leverage - find her a Nen remover for the bothersome foreign Nen that she's only recently noticed on her hands, and she'll tell the future of his stocks and company and make him rich. Except, you know, she's a horrible person and totally intends to exploit Mr. Richards. And as for Hisoka, well, you'll find that out later.**

**Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger. I know you're confused, and I'm sorry.**

**As always, thanks so much to everyone who's reviews, favorited, and alerted this story. We're almost there.**

**Have a great day! Expect a faster update next time.**


	15. Chapter 15

_._

**_Flash._**

**_._**

**_._**

_She really shouldn't have run off. Her dad had told her not to; that she should stay by his side the whole time, because the hospital was large and busy. They were only here to see her mother. There was paperwork to settle, and hospital fees to pay, treatments costs to plan and develop._

_She was old enough, her dad told her, to understand that sometimes things don't last forever._

_But the hospital was brightly lit and fascinating, with large posters plastered against the clean, wide hallways and Kaede had always been good at slipping away__._

_._

"Stop," she gasped, "_no_ - "

_._

_And she had wandered off, transfixed by colorful image after colorful image, hand trailing against the grooves in the white-painted walls. Her feet fell softly on the marble floor. The sound of rolling wheels and people talking drifted past her, but she paid them no mind, fascinated by the rough-smooth edges of paint and concrete she felt along the walls._

_When she reached the end of the hallway, she realized that something was wrong._

_She was completely alone. Kaede swiveled on her tiptoes, small hands still pressed clumsily against the wall. Somehow she had taken a wrong turn, and now she was in a narrow side hallway, with hospital rooms that had darkened windows. She pivoted again, confusion crossing her features._

_All of a sudden, the fear that a child has when it realizes that it doesn't know where it is clutched at her, hard, and she felt panic well up in her stomach, threatening to spill over as tears._

_Where was her mom? Her father? A nurse? Anyone? She turned again, frantically searching for her father, except no one was there._

__She began to sniffle, only to hear footsteps behind her, harsh and loud against the tiled floor. She turned quickly, but her vision was blurry from a film of tears and all she could make out was a vague dark mass.__

__No, multiple dark masses. She wasn't as alone as she had thought she had been.__

_"...Idiot. I told you, don't let anyone pass. Even if it's a little girl."_

_And then all of a sudden, the most terrifying feeling settled upon her._

_._

_._

_It was crushing her chest, burrowing its way into her stomach, and she buckled, gasping as she started to cry for real. An intense pressure forced her head down so she was looking at her trembling feet, clutching at her shivering body. __She was so scared she couldn't move, even if she had wanted to. _

_"Just a stupid kid, huh?"_

_Just a stupid kid. Just a stupid kid. Just a stupid kid. For some reason, this one sentence repeated itself in her head like a mantra, as if she was incapable of comprehending what her situation could possibly mean._

_The world seemed to spin. Something painful was jabbing at her body from every direction, and Kaede found that she was crying harder, the world blurring around her._

_" - I'll take care of it, boss, don't you worry - "_

_A harsh blow to the back of her head, almost careless in its execution but oh, so painful, and her head was bursting into fire and she was dying, dying, dying, and Kaede had never thought black could be such a relieving sensation._

_._

_._

_._

**_Flash._**

_"Oh my god, it's a kid! What is she doing here?"_

_Hands against her shoulders, prying her off the floor._

_"Quickly, quickly! She's pale and sweating. Something's happened. Where is this girl's parents?"_

_Cold hands against her face, knuckles ghosting over her forehead._

_"Kaede?"_

_Disjointed mumbling. She thought she saw shapes. She thought she saw her father, but she couldn't be sure. The cold tiled floor pressed against her cheek, and for a moment she thought she was dissolving into the floor, melting into a puddle. Then she was suddenly lifted, and Kaede looked down, fully expecting to see herself dripping down onto the floor, because there were fuzzy bright lights whenever she blinked and she had the abnormal feeling of dissolving._

_"What -"_

_Jostling. Commotion._

_"- happened here? - that's my daughter, her name is Kaede - !"_

_"- I don't know, please, - - "_

_"- that's - she ran off - - - Kaede - how - ?"_

_"- oh my god, oh my god, hurry - "_

_- - ?_

_- ?_

_._

_._

And breathe. _Breathe._

"Are you okay?" she heard Abengane say, concern coloring his tone.

She was shaking, Kaede realized. She was kneeling on the ground, hands braced against the forest floor. The Nen creature continued to chew away at the Nen threads, but she couldn't pay attention.

She couldn't pay attention because _she didn't understand what was going on anymore._

"Hey!" Abengane was moving towards her, kneeling down beside her, frowning. "Hey, are you okay? What's going on?"

"Nothing," she gasped, "it's nothing."

_._

_._

**_Flash._**

_When she came to, she felt weak and drained. Confused, and disoriented, like there was something she should have remembered but couldn't. Who was she? What was she doing? Where was she?_

_Her head hurt. She spasmed in pain. Something. Something was in the air._

Come back to me, _she thought, blindly, _come back to me.

_Hadn't she been looking for her father? _

_She was drifting into pieces, dissolving like smoke into the air. She could _feel _her body crumbling, as if she were now ashes turning into smoke, ready to be blown apart by the gentlest of winds. _

Come back to me, _she thought again, unable to make a coherent thought besides those four words. Her eyes fluttered open._

_She was lying in a bed. Her bed, this was her bed. How did she get here?_

_Her head hurt. With a start, Kaede realized she was crying. Somehow she had curled up in the fetal position, eyes wide, as if stunned. The tears slid down her nose and cheek without a sound._

_Her eyes drifted to the ceiling. I really am disappearing, she thought, I'm like smoke being carried away. Because that was her, wasn't it? Gray steam lifting from her body. It was warm, and it was drifting away._

_Maybe I'm melting after all, Kaede thought, deliriously. Maybe I'm melting, except into the air instead of the floor._

_._

_._

_"Mr. Hanegawa, please calm down. The x-ray scans show no permanent damage to her limbs; she has no broken bones and her body functions are perfectly normal aside from her fever. It's still hard to determine exactly what happened, so please - "_

_"Just give me what you think happened, doctor."_

_Immense relief washed over her as she heard her father's voice. That was her father, speaking to the doctor in the room. Except he sounded tired, and angry at the same time._

_"...She hit her head," the doctor her dad was speaking to said reluctantly. It was a feminine voice, Kaede realized, softer and higher, but firm. "Somehow, she got hit in the back of the head with a blow hard enough to usually impair mental functions, especially because she's so small. I'm very sorry, Mr. Hanegawa, but I'm afraid Kaede might have suffered some damage to her brain."_

_Kaede's fingers twitched, as if she were trying to wipe away the desperate tears that were still on her own face._

You came back, _she thought. It was a strange feeling, but the smoke that was her was returning, sinking back into her body. Her green eyes blinked, and Kaede suddenly saw something _shift, _the way the light moves when you walk by a puddle of water._

_You came back._

_"...luckily, it doesn't seem to have affected the region of her brain regarding motor functions. She will still be able to talk, and walk, and even participate in athletics."_

_The doctor was still talking. The edge of a white lab coat entered her vision._

_"I'm sorry, sweetie," the doctor told her, and knelt down so she was in Kaede's line of vision. "I'll do my best to help you recover, okay?"_

_She was a beautiful lady, her dark hair pinned back and round brown eyes filled with worry. She had milky, clear skin, with a delicate bone structure, and her eyebrows were creased in a faint frown._

.

.

.

Her eyes flew open.

She knew that face. She _knew _that face.

Her heart thudded within her chest, eyes watching her hands as the creature covered her hands, _eating _the foreign Nen away. The heat of Abengane's fire washed over her face, but she could not have cared less, because the sudden memories that were flooding into her head were making her dizzy. Her brain turned, rewinding time, back to the small confines of a car and a beautiful lady, the same beautiful lady, except with more make-up and jewelry and expensive clothing.

_"My name is Tabitha," the lady said. "I don't believe we've met. I'm your father's wife."_

Tabitha. The doctor had been Tabitha.

_"No," Kaede, said, hesitantly, "I've seen you before."_

All of a sudden, Kaede was so scared she couldn't breathe.

_Liar._

She trembled, violently, and closed her eyes once more.

.

_Kaede watched in confusion._

_People had strings on their hands._

_She had strings on her hands, too. She would stare at them, confused, and then she would get very, very tired, and when she woke up once again they would be gone. Sometimes, they would reappear, randomly, and she would be so fascinated by them that she would lose track of time, and other people would find her sprawled against the carpet, sweating with exhaustion. Eventually, she came to associate seeing the strings with passing out._

_"Anemia," they said. "Trauma. The blow to her head makes her black out occasionally. It's something she'll have to live with for the rest of her life. This has happened before, you know. Nothing to worry about. Make sure she's always well-rested."_

_Except she knew better, because every time the strings flickered into existence, it was as if she had put on magic glasses that suddenly allowed her to see the strings connecting the people around her. Warmer colors for warmer feelings, like the happy orange color between her father and her doctor. And every time the strings flickered into existence, steam lifted from her like smoke from a fire, and she would panic, trying to call it back, pull it back in the way one would try to grab at a kite string that has slipped though one's fingers._

_And eventually, it would listen to her. If she wanted to, she would be able to see the threads, but only if she tried very hard. And if she tried for too long, the steam would drain out of her body and she'd wake up the next morning, tucked into her bed, feeling disoriented and drained. And the doctor would be there again, telling her to listen, to relax, to breathe._

_._

_._

_._

Some people are just different.

_Having your Nen ability forcibly activated can damage you if the person isn't careful. It could cost you an arm. A leg. Sometimes, it could cost you your life._

Kaede knew this. Hisoka had told her, that the body had certain points called shouko and if they were subjected to malicious nen and forcibly opened, the person would suffer a devastating injury. People who survived, however, would be able to use Nen as a result. This was the most harmful way to learn Nen.

Did that mean - ?

Was it possible that - ?

A cold shard of fear appeared in her heart.

_._

_._

_._

_"There's something wrong with her," Tabitha said, shaking her head sadly, dark curls swinging. "That blow to her head, because it was to the back of the head, didn't reduce her motor functions, but it damaged her memories and the region of her brain that controls emotions. It's hard to explain, but it means that she will feel...less. And she will never have children. I can't say for certain whether or not her memories have been affected in any way, but scans show damage in that region as well, although minor. With luck, all she'll have is a case of amnesia, and she won't be able to remember much of her traumatic experience. I don't think her ability to form memories is hindered in any way.."_

_._

.

"Oh my god," she said, "Oh my god, my Nen. My _Nen._"

She couldn't remember seeing the strings before her mother's death. But that wasn't true, was it? Her memories from when she was a child were blurry and inconsistent, and she couldn't place things in the correct order. She thought she had run away, and that her father had not searched for her.

_Don't you love your father? _they had asked her and she had said no, but that was _wrong, _wasn't it? Because she had grown up with her father and her mother and they had loved her, but somehow the part of her brain that regulated feelings of attachment had been injured and _this was why. _She had thought _friends were useless _and she had never really trusted Lucy and the twins but somehow when they died she had felt a sense of loss anyway, maybe not because she felt it but because she didn't and she was supposed to. Her breaths were choked.

"?" she felt something sliding over her cheeks, and all she could do was stare at her hands, "?" It had been such a long time since she had cried. She had almost forgotten the feeling.

She had never gotten her period. She had wondered why, sometimes, and had always thought it was because of undernourishment, a side effect of going hungry. But she had never gotten her period even though she had been eating well for the past few months and _could this possibly be why?_

Her knees buckled. Abengane's Nen-eating creature seemed to finish, and slithered away across the forest floor, and all she was left with was her bare, bare hands and a feeling of intense loss.

"Thank you," she heard herself say to Abengane.

"It was a small curse," Abengane told her, worry crossing his features. Surely he had never gotten this reaction before. "It's disappearing already. Are you - ?"

_I have to focus._

Kaede breathed deeply.

"I'm fine," she said, and a faint smile appeared on her face, "Good job. The money should have been wired to your account by now."

"Okay," Abengane said, nodding. He gave her a short bow, "I need to clean up, so feel free to leave. Thank you for working with me. Are you sure you're -"

"I'm _fine!_" she snapped, her hand pressing against her forehead, fingers twisting into her hair. "I'm going to leave now. Thank you."

Abengane narrowed his eyes, but nodded. Very reluctantly, he stepped away from her. The fire had died down and became nothing more than a trail of smoke.

Kaede swallowed thickly, gave him a curt nod, and left the clearing.

_I have to focus._

But it was hard, because she was still reeling.

Memory loss. Hindered logical reasoning, and inconsistent emotional responses. She had never gotten her period. She would never have children.

It seemed so obvious now.

Kaede leaned against the trunk of a tree when she was a safe distance away, hand pressed against her mouth. Now that she was alone, she could stop herself from shuddering. Her breaths came out panicky and uneven, so she smothered them with her hand. Her blood pounded loudly in her ears.

_The whole time...what was I looking for?_

Kaede had assumed incorrectly. She knew that there were holes in her memory, holes that she couldn't explain. She had thought that the colorless, silk-like threads that covered her hands like gloves were hiding her memory, and that someone had tampered with her brain. But she had been wrong.

And this...this raised questions. This raised more questions than Kaede was prepared for, questions that she had no time to deal with.

She was shaking. She had always thought that she was good at controlling herself; always good at keeping a mask of indifference. It was something she had prided herself on, something that she had always thought of as a sign of being strong.

She was such an _idiot. _Surely, she remembered moments where she couldn't see the strings, but her childhood memories were so vague and fuzzy that she had simply pushed the idea away. Avoidance. Once again, she had been running away from anything that she felt scared of. Now she had so many questions her head hurt.

.

.

.

_"I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do," Kaede said. "I'm going to go in there and get this curse removed. It shouldn't take long. But after I leave, you need to tell Mr. Richards the truth."_

_"The truth?" __Hisoka raised an eyebrow, and crossed his arms._

_"Tell him that I'm scamming him. I don't care how you do it. Just make sure he knows that he can't trust me."_

_He frowned. "Why?"_

_Kaede sighed, and rubbed at her forehead with a frown. "I just want to extract myself from this mess as cleanly as possible. When I read his future, I'm not going to be able to lie and make up a bunch of believable economic and political jargon. That means I'm just going to have to go with the truth, and actually tell him what future I see. I can't let him believe what I say is true, because then his company would grow stronger, not weaker."_

_Hisoka shrugged, a faint smile appearing on his face. "Right," he drawled, "almost forgot. You're trying to destroy the company, not help it."_

.

.

.

.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Kaede reached for it and opened it with trembling fingers. It was a text from Hisoka.

_Mission complete on my end, sweetie. _

She took a deep breath, and willed herself to respond. She had a job to do. She had a CEO to kill, and a company citadel to topple. She had so many things she had to do.

_Everything went okay? _she replied, forcing herself to take a breath. A deeply suspicious part of her knew that Hisoka would never stick to a plan so easily.

The next text she received had a smiling emoticon on it. _Ahh,_ sorry. __

Damn.

__I ____couldn't get to Mr. Richards,__ and she could almost feel Hisoka's smirk as he said this, _so_ I told his bodyguards instead. __

He had done _what? _Kaede's fingers tightened around her phone.

__There are quite a lot of people pissed at you. They should be getting there...in a few minutes, I think.__

Instead of earning her the wrath of one (although politically powerful) person, he had sent her a group of trained, healthy bodyguards.

Typical. She...had known this would happen.

_...Thanks for the warning, _Kaede sighed, and pressed one of her hands against her forehead, eyes fluttering shut. She had to focus for now. She had to distract herself from her thoughts and focus on something completely different. She breathed deeply, and willed her shaky breaths to even out.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she cracked one eye open to read the words on the screen. _Aww, you sound worried. Need me to rescue you~?_

A wry smile appeared on Kaede's face,_ I don't know, you don't really seem the type._

Of all things, at least she knew Hisoka would distract her.

She only hesitated briefly before she sent him one more text. _Want to join me instead?_

His reply was almost immediate.

_Why, I never refuse when a lady asks me out on a date, Kaede-chan. _

An uncharacteristic thrill ran through her, and she squashed it down mercilessly before it could give her goosebumps. But his words were unexpected, and a electrical pulse zipped just underneath her skin anyway. _Better hurry,_ she typed quickly, _It'd be rude to keep me waiting._

Her feet crunched against the forest floor as she walked deeper into the forest. She needed to get as far away from Abengane as possible. _  
><em>

_._

_._

_._

_._

She felt them before she saw them: large presences, although it seemed as if none of them knew Nen. That would make her job easier, but it was indeed a large group of people and she wondered vaguely how long it would take for Hisoka to get here. Knowing him, he would easily be able to catch up to the group.

A group of men emerged from the trees, their footsteps crunching heavily against the ground. She scanned them over quickly, eyes drifting briefly to the guns strapped to their holsters. Mmm, this was sort of disadvantageous for her. She didn't have much experience with guns.

But this was lucky, in a way. She needed something to distract herself. Kaede was good at that; she was good at distracting herself. She was good at running away and pretending that the world had not just been flipped on its head.

(Because really, the world had been flipped on its head.)

She had situated herself right at the edge of the clearing opposite the group of bodyguards, forcing them to run out into the open clearing in order to close in on her. This way, she could slip back into the forest at a moment's notice, while they would be stuck without much shelter to hide behind on.

"...are you Mr. Richards' bodyguards?" Kaede asked, with more casualty in her voice than she felt.

"Game's over, little bitch," one of them snarled, "we found out about your little ploy. Mr. Richards has always been a sucker for superstition and magical stuff, so it's no surprise that he'd be totally convinced by you and your little act. It's a good thing we knew exactly where you were, though. I bet you're not even a real fortune-teller."

"...Hey now," Kaede said, eyebrows raising, _what in the world had Hisoka told them?_ "that's not true. My intentions were sort of dishonest, but I assure you I am a very real fortune-teller."

"It doesn't matter," another man stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest, a sharp frown on his face. "All deals are off. Mr. Richards has already been informed, and you will go to prison for fraud. It's over, Yasukawa-san."

"...Who ratted me out?"

The man scoffed. "Some recently hired mercenary. But if I were you, I wouldn't be worried about him."

He pulled out his gun, and the rest of the bodyguards mimicked his actions. Around her, she heard the eerie clicking of the safety removing from their guns, and wondered if it was a good or bad thing to be unworried.

"Now," he said, lifting his gun to train it on her. "you're outnumbered, Yasukawa-san. Please don't try to fight, or we will shoot."

Kaede smiled. She raised her hands slowly, and shrugged.

"...so this mercenary that exposed me...let's see. Red hair," she said, slowly, "pale face? Plays with cards? Dresses like a clown? ...Ahh, I'm right, aren't I? ...What was his name again? _Hisoka?_"

A blur through the trees. The sound of wind rustling through the trees. Around her, the bodyguards seemed faintly shocked.

"How do you know his name?" one of them asked suspiciously. The group shifted in unease.

She smiled and kept her palms in the air. She did not answer his question.

There was a flicker of Nen far behind her, but it was stationary, and up high. Instead of a warning, it was more of a signal.

Her Nen flared in response, and Kaede tilted her head, her smile disappearing. "Oh...and one more thing."

_He's here._

"My last name...is _Hanegawa._"

The moment the cards flew out of the trees and sank them into the first man's skull, Kaede leaped into action.

Her Nen surged to her fist, and she slammed it into the person nearest her's stomach. There was a collective cry from the group, and all of a sudden Kaede was forced to leap away to avoid a hail of bullets. She skidded away from the group and into the forest, and threw herself behind a tree, pulse racing with adrenaline.

"Hisoka," she said loudly, "in case you've forgotten, I really can't do anything against guns."

There was a rustling above her, and the red-haired magician dropped down from the tree. He shrugged, and smirked.

"Sorry?" he offered, and grinned when she glared at him.

"I'm serious," he said, hands on his hips. "They have bad aim. Just go for it. You'll survive."

Kaede inhaled _slowly._

"Right," she said, and grabbed Hisoka's shirt in an uncharacteristic display of confidence. She cracked a smile, "but this is a date, remember?"

She pushed Hisoka unceremoniously out from the cover of the tree. There was another collective shout from the group of bodyguards.

"Hisoka?! What are you doing?"

"Hey, that's Hisoka! Why are you here? We didn't see you!"

Hisoka tsked, flashing her a somewhat irritated glance, and flicked a card sharply at one man. He fell with a cry, and the sound of surprised cries and gunshots filled the air.

"Hisoka? What are you- _gurrk-!_"

_Nicely done, _Kaede thought as she also darted out from behind the tree, and vaulted herself into the group. _They're surprised at Hisoka's appearance. They won't dare shoot me if I attack them so closely. Right?_

She grabbed a man's gun and twisted hard, pulling the man to the ground. She grabbed hold of another bodyguard's jacket, and whacked her foot into the back of his knees, swinging his body around sharply to knock into someone else. That would be two down. Someone fired a shot, and she whipped around just in time to avoid being attacked from behind by a bodyguard. She jumped to the side, rolled forward, and smacked the heel of her palm into the man's chin, sending his head snapping back. Her Nen crackled as it receded from her palms. With a fierce cry, she kneed him in the stomach and delivered a forceful blow to his temple in quick succession. The man slumped unconscious to the ground.

Kaede whirled around, crouching into a defensive pose. She briefly saw Hisoka slit a man's throat with a card before having to leap away to avoid a smattering of bullets, and quickly lunged forward, yanking at the bodyguard's gun and twisting it out of his grip. She flipped it quickly, smashing the butt of the gun into his shoulder before pulling back.

Kaede's fingers fumbled for the right grip on the gun as she aimed at the bodyguard's legs, and she pulled the trigger sharply, feeling the gun explode between her palms. The man cried out in pain, clutching at his shot knee. Another down. How many were left? She was breathing hard from exertion, but the adrenaline was pumping through her veins with an intensity she hadn't expected.

The recoil from the gun had stung her hand. Kaede frowned, and sucked in air. She looked down at the gun in her hands, green eyes narrowing.

Nen rushed into her palms, soothing the stinging, and then she _crushed _the gun, fingers tightening around hard metal and plastic until they bent and groaned under her Nen-enhanced grip, screeching defiantly into a mangled lump. She bared her teeth at the feeling of its ridges cutting into her flesh, felt the gun clip twist and pop apart, bullets thumping heavily into the ground.

She really disliked guns. Kaede opened her fist, and let the now destroyed gun drop.

She lifted her gaze to see the panicked gaze of another bodyguard, hands shaking slightly as he aimed the gun at her. After her unusual display of strength, Kaede guessed, anyone would feel a little worried.

She threw herself to the ground as he pulled the trigger, wincing at the loud gunshot, and rolled forward before he could react. Channeling Nen to her legs, she sprung up, smacking the gun out of his hand and jabbing a sharp fist into his solar plexus at the same time. Her muscles tightened with the effort, but she paid no attention to their overuse. The bodyguard doubled over, a curse escaping from his lips before she swiftly kicked his legs out from under him and brought up her knee to his head. He slumped unconsciously to the ground.

To her panic, all of a sudden someone grabbed hold of the back of her shirt and yanked her backwards. Something cold and hard pressed against her head.

"ENOUGH!" the man growled behind her. "Don't move an inch, or I'll blow your skull out."

Kaede froze, but only for an instant. A card sailed through the air and sliced neatly into the man's throat. Kaede winced as she felt his blood splash onto her face, but wasted no time in ripping the man's gun away from her head and out of his grasp, then grabbing the man's limp arm and tossing him into the bodyguard in front of her, making both of them crash into the ground.

Kaede was breathing hard, eyes flickering down to the gun she now held in her hand.

_Again. _It felt unnatural in her hands, heavy and useless. Her fingers tightened on it, as if considering crushing it like she had with the other one. Then, with a grimace, she tossed it carelessly away onto the ground near the knocked out bodyguards.

She felt someone behind her, and she whipped around, Nen rushing to her fist as she pulled it back. Instead of another bodyguard, however, she was met with Hisoka's heated golden eyes.

Her Nen disappeared, and she lowered her fist, exhaling. Another quick survey of the clearing told her that all of the bodyguards had been knocked to the ground somehow, and that Hisoka and her were the only ones left. Kaede swallowed with a surprising amount of effort, and wiped haphazardly at the blood that had sprayed onto her face and neck. Hisoka's eyes instantly flicked to her movement. Unlike her, he didn't show any signs of exertion.

.

This girl was _not _good for him.

Hisoka took her in slowly, eyes dragging over the lack of injuries on her body, the way that her chest rose and fell, the flush of adrenaline on her cheeks, and the heat of battle still present in her eyes. The blood on her face was smeared sideways across her cheek, looking almost like red war paint. His eyes followed the movement of her hand as she wiped her face, tracking the blood that transferred onto her hand with a somewhat animalistic feeling curling in his stomach. His mouth had gone dry.

There hadn't really been anything to it; the fight had been boring, and the few men he had casually picked off were easily dispatched. But for some reason watching her fight had completely captivated him. Her movements were far from graceful; instead, they were blunt and _raw,_ with power and precision placed behind each blow. And the way she had crushed that gun...

That had been unexpectedly violent. And unhesitating. And the surge of Nen into her fist, so raw and uncontrolled had been..._distracting,_ to say the least.

He really couldn't help it. Not when she was panting in front of him and her cheeks were flushed and she just _wouldn't look away. _Hisoka stepped closer, and grinned toothily when he noticed the way her breath caught.

He grabbed her shirt, and tugged her forward. Without saying anything, he traced the smear of blood on her cheek, and dragged it down to her jaw. Kaede shivered at the touch of his calloused fingertips, and the edges of his mouth curled at her reaction.

Her eyes flickered to his fingers and how they lifted red from her cheek.

"Thanks," she said, somewhat breathlessly, "for killing that guy. I almost panicked."

The guy whose windpipe he had sent a card through. The fact that his blood had splattered so artfully over Kaede's cheek was...exciting. Hisoka felt the corners of his mouth lift slightly.

"No problem," he replied lightly, his eyes dropping to her lips.

She shifted slightly, as if she felt uncomfortable. She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, and once again he was fascinated by the way the forest seemed to cast shadows in her green eyes. "Hisoka?"

His fingers slackened on her shirt, and Hisoka took a step closer, enjoying the vaguely confused expression on her face as she tried to assess the situation.

"You didn't kill anyone," he noticed.

"I wasn't supposed to," she replied almost defiantly, as if challenging him to rebuke her.

Right. Black strings. Surely, if they had meant to die by her, she would have known.

_"There's no black string between us two."_

And all of a sudden, he was very, very curious.

"Even with a gun in your hand, when you knew you had the power to do so? Soft," he admonished with false disappointment. The corner of his mouth lifted, if only a little. "Although I will say...you never did answer my question, Kaede-chan." He grabbed her hand, let his fingers ghost over the knuckles of her pinky, and smirked faintly when she shivered, the tendons in her arm tightening for just an instant.

Kaede wrenched her hand out of his with a force that surprised him.

"Why don't I ask you a question instead?" she said, something unreadable in her expression.

.

.

_And you say you've been able to seen the strings since you were born?_

_._

Harsh breathing. The feeling of blood thrumming in her ears, the forest around her sharpening into focus.

.

_"It's the most harmful way to learn Nen."_

_._

_._

"Did you know," she asked him instead, her words coming out in a rush, "from the beginning? That there was a possibility...that maybe, just maybe, my Nen power wasn't natural?"

.

A single blow to the back of her head. Reinforced with Nen, it was enough to kill someone.

But not her. Somehow, she had survived. She had been the one in a thousand, the lucky one, the miracle, the -

_._

_- anomaly._

.

And that one shouko point which opened all others..._the back of her head._

.

_Not natural._

**_My Nen is not natural._**

It had seemed weird, now that she thought of it. Natural Nen-users were usually artists. Painters. Composers. Artisans, craftmakers.

But not her. No, from the beginning, she simply hadn't fit the idea of a natural Nen-user. She struggled to understand her strings, was fatigued when using them. It took effort to train her ability; effort and the gradual enhancement of her nen capacity.

.

.

.

This gave him pause.

Impossible. Her control over her Nen was almost on par with his own, and she hadn't had nearly the amount of training he had went through. Nen was something he had picked up easily, but she had simply flew through the different learning stages without seeming to breathe once. All along, he had simply chalked it up to her natural-born affinity for Nen, and that sometimes life favored others more.

And now she was saying that it hadn't been natural at all?

In that case...

"No," Hisoka said, releasing her shirt. "I didn't."

In that case, she was even more of an anomaly than he had thought. She had not only survived a forced shouko opening, but had gone on to bypass any other forms of controlling the Nen that leaked out of her aura nodes to develop a specific _Hatsu. _It would explain why her Hatsu had been so undeveloped when he first met her, and also how he had so easily identified her. When he had first seen her, sitting by the brick wall, with a tattered hood pulled over her face, it was as if she had been barely holding on to her aura, the way someone clung to a flipped umbrella during an extremely windy thunderstorm.

There had always been something..._unstable _about her.

Whenever he saw her, she simply seemed like a puzzle piece that did not fit, something that was _wrong. _So this was why. She had survived a forced node opening to the back of her head, something which should have killed her but did not.

_But surely not without consequences, _Hisoka realized, and took in the grim set of her jaw, the faint desperation that was veiled behind hard eyes.

She was missing no limbs; and that was why he found it so surprising. Most people who developed Nen through force were severely disabled, missing an arm or a leg or in some cases part of their internal organs. She seemed to be missing nothing.

"...at what price?" he asked, his tone unexpectedly serious.

Her smile was all jagged glass and needles, and then he realized that there would always be a price.

"My brain," Kaede told him, her smile slipping away. "I can't remember any memories before the event clearly. I'm suspecting it also influenced the bridge between my emotional and logical reasoning. And I...I won't ever have children."

The hesitation in her last sentence surprised him. _Had you wanted children, one day? _he wondered, but quickly dismissed the idea. He doubted that she would have answered him anyway.

Kaede shifted uneasily, averting her gaze.

"This doesn't change anything," she said, finally. "This won't change anything."

Hisoka recognized the steel in her voice, but also fear, and panic. He recognized these, but didn't seem to quite understand it. Somehow he had come to associate Kaede with _coldness, _with apathy and a pit of carefully controlled emotions that sometimes would slip to the surface if he pushed and prodded the right buttons. Somehow, in her constant formality and stiffness, he had forgotten that underneath her well-practiced facade was a highly fragile, flammable character.

He disliked it. Rather than her instability, he had been more drawn to the careful, careful way she presented herself. He had been drawn to her icy exterior, and had found himself fascinated with the many, many layers she had covered herself with. She had always, always surprised him. And there were very few things that could surprise him.

But this...

_You are becoming too easy to read, Kaede Hanegawa, _he thought, eyes slitted, his expression thoughtful. With a tinge of regret, he had the feeling that perhaps this string of surprises from the half-Japanese girl would be coming to an end soon._  
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><p><strong>...and there you go, guys. Sorry, but I like keeping my chapters below 6000 words. This one actually went a little over, not including this author's note, so...yeah. Also, this was updated faster than usual, so...wheee.<strong>

**If you're confused, drop a review and I'll answer it. **

**Chapter two...I'm working on it. Gah. Promise.**

**Thanks so much for the favorites and alerts and reviews, everyone, they make me super happy. I know this story isn't a very well paced story, but it's my story damn it and I'm going to finish this sucker. I see the end approaching, guys. STAY WITH ME. I LOVE YOU ALL.**


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